Effects-Based Approaches To Operations-Canadian Perspectives

Part I - Introductory Material
Effects-Based Approaches to Operations:

Canadian Perspectives
Edited by
Allan English and Howard Coombs
This study was prepared for the Canadian Department of National Defence but
the views expressed in it are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the
policy or the opinion of any agency, including the Government of Canada and the Canadian
Department of National Defence.
© Her Majesty the Queen as represented by the Minister of National Defence, 2008
Catalogue Number: D2-233/2008E-PDF
ISBN Number: 978-1-100-10632-8
This publication is available online at trenton.mil.ca/lodger/CFAWC/eLibrary/eLibrary_

e.asp on the intranet or at www.airforce.forces.gc.ca/cfawc/eLibrary/eLibrary_e.asp on the
internet.
Art direction and editing by Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare Centre Production Section.
This publication was prepared for the Canadian Department of National Defence but the
views exprssed in it are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the policy
or the opinion of any agency, including the Government of Canada and the Canadian De-
partment of National Defence.
© Her Majesty the Queen as represented by the Minister of National Defence, 2008
iv
Table of Contents
PART I – INTRODUCTORY MATERIAL
Chapter 1 Introduction.....................................................................................................3
PART II - ORIGINS, CONCEPTS AND CONTEXT

Chapter 2 Effects-Based Operations: An Evolving Revolution...........................................7
Colonel J.F. Cottingham
Chapter 3 Future Perfect: Effects-Based Operations, Complexity and the
Human Environment........................................................................................................64
Robert Grossman-Vermaas
PART III – CANADIAN PERSPECTIVES FROM THE EBO WORKSHOP

Chapter 4 Summary of Conclusions From the Effects-Based
Operations Workshop.......................................................................................................85
Howard Coombs and Allan English
PART IV - ASSESSING EFFECTS-BASED APPROACHES

Chapter 5 The History and Theory of Naval Effects-Based Operations............................95
Commander Kenneth P. Hansen
Chapter 6 Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid – Effects-Based Operations..................................103
Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Magee
Chapter 7 Putting Lipstick on a Pig: The Effects-Based Approach
and Strategic Art.............................................................................................................110
Lieutenant-Colonel Craig Dalton
PART V - APPLYING EFFECTS-BASED APPROACHES

Chapter 8 The Canadian Land Force and Effects-Based Operations..............................121
Robert H. Vokac
Chapter 9 Effects-Based Professional Military Education...............................................126
Colonel Randall Wakelam
Chapter 10 A Bridge Too Far?: The Theory and Practice of the Effects-Based
Concept and the Multinational Interagency Role............................................................132

PART VI – CONCLUDING MATERIAL
Chapter 11 Concluding Remarks from the Editors.......................................................153
PART VII – ANNEXES

Annex A Effects-Based Operations: An Annotated Bibliography...................................165
J.R. McKay
Annex B Application of Combat Power (Draft)............................................................184
Annex C List of Abbreviations......................................................................................247
Annex D Contributors.................................................................................................253
vi
Foreword
Effects-based operations (EBO) has been a source of debate for many years. Some
would argue that EBO is the ultimate conceptual approach to military operations that
sees an adversary as a system-of-systems with key nodes and interconnectivities that can be
influenced, through kinetic or non-kinetic means, to produce a desired effect (or effects).
Proponents emphasize that in increasingly complex situations where overt military action
may produce unintended adverse effects, EBO facilitates a more in-depth analysis of the
mission requirements to identify the optimum method, such as diplomatic or economic
initiatives, to achieve the desired effects. The result is a multi-faceted approach to multi-
faceted problems.
Others argue that EBO is not a new concept and has been practiced in one form
or another for centuries. While the need to identify and influence key nodes, or centres of
gravity, has long been understood as a cornerstone of military planning and operations, our
ability to predict multiple cascading effects remains an elusive goal. EBO often translates
into an over emphasis on trying to identify ever elusive “effects” to the detriment of focused
operational planning and the determination of achievable goals. In this case, the result is
confusion, wasted effort and the illusion of progress.
As the papers presented in this book illustrate, the Canadian defence community
has not been immune from this debate. However, our support or non-support of EBO has
often been influenced by our need to be interoperable with major allies. To a large degree
discussion within the US, UK and NATO has provided the background for our examination
of EBO. While there is value to be gained from this approach, as military and defence
professionals it behoves us to address EBO from a Canadian perspective as well. The works
contained in this volume are a first step in examining EBO from a Canadian point of view.
Effects-based operations is a complex concept that is influencing our approach to

operations in the 21st Century. The nature and extent of this influence will be determined
by a reasoned, critical look at EBO’s applicability within a Canadian context and the
information contained in this book will provide you with a broader understanding of that
context.
I look forward to continuing the debate.
M.R. Dabros
Colonel
Commanding Officer
Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare Centre
vii
Part I - Introductory Material
Introduction
Chapter 1
Introduction
There are currently three major theoretical approaches that dominate analyses and
descriptions of military operations. They are Operational Art, network-centric warfare
(NCW) (or network-enabled operations (NEOps) in the Canadian context), and effects-
based operations (EBO). The concept of EBO is currently having a significant influence on
Operational Art and NCW, as well as how operations are conceptualized in the new security
environment. However, there are many variants of EBO and each alternative has been shaped
by national and organizational cultures.1 Some aspects of Canadian approaches to EBO
have been published,2 but no comprehensive or integrated Canadian approach to EBO has
yet been documented. Given the importance of EBO in current operations and in Canadian
Forces (CF) transformation initiatives, it is essential that we have a clearer picture of what
this concept means in a Canadian context.
The concept of EBO is emerging through discussions and papers within Defence
Research and Development Canada (DRDC) jointly with other stakeholders in the
Department of National Defence (DND); however, there are many ways of describing EBO
in the literature and in practice. In order to fully understand the nature of EBO today and
how it might evolve in the future, it is essential to understand the theoretical and historical
origins of this subject, as well as how EBO is conceptualized and practiced by the CF. Since
there has been no comprehensive examination of these concepts in a Canadian context, the
Command Effectiveness and Behaviour Section at DRDC Toronto co-sponsored with the
Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare Centre (CFAWC) a two-day workshop to identify the
issues related to EBO and to begin to establish the agenda for better understanding EBO.
This book is the product of that workshop and it includes not only the main conclusions of
the workshop, but also essays on EBO by workshop participants and others. Terms related
to EBO have a variety of meanings and are understood in a number of ways. No attempt is
made here to reconcile these differences, but the differences are presented so that readers can
get a better idea of how effects-based terminology is currently being used by Canadians.
The second part of this book, following the introduction in part one, consists of
two essays which examine the origins of EBO, the context in which effects-based approaches
exist, and the meaning of some concepts related to EBO. The first essay is an analysis of the
origins and evolution of EBO by Colonel J.F. Cottingham, the first commanding officer of
the CFAWC. He argues that there are currently two principal versions of EBO, one of which
can be viewed as revolutionary while the other cannot. The next essay is a monograph by
Canadian defence scientist Robert Grossman-Vermaas on the effects-based approach (EBA)
as an alternative means to pursue foreign and defence policy objectives.

Chapter 1
The third section of this book presents a summary of the views of the workshop
participants on various aspects of EBO as expressed in syndicate and plenary discussions and
as documented by syndicate facilitators and recorders. The workshop discussion was based
on six questions provided by the organizers: What is an “effect” in the context of EBO? What
is EBO in a Canadian context? What are the linkages between EBO and Networked Enabled
Operations, network-centric warfare, and Operational Art? How might EBO affect future
force employment? How might EBO affect future force development? How might EBO
affect future force generation?
The contributions in parts IV and V of this book that assess effects-based

approaches were written after the workshop, and are, therefore, presented after the workshop
proceedings. The fourth section of this volume presents three assessments of EBO from
different perspectives. The first essay here by Commander Ken Hansen, who is on the faculty
of the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies at Dalhousie University, discusses the relevance of
EBO to navies. He argues that naval historical context and theories of naval warfare suggest
that an EBO-based approach to the conceptualization, planning, and conduct of naval
operations, would be unwise. The second essay in this section by LCol Colin Magee, Chair
of the Department of Military Planning and Operations at the Canadian Forces College
(CFC), was written after the workshop. In it he argues that, because of the lack of precision
in EBO terminology, current joint doctrine constructs should not be wholly supplanted by
EBO concepts and methodologies for the planning and conduct of operations. The final
essay in this section, by Lieutenant-Colonel Craig Dalton, an international planner on the
Strategic Joint Staff at National Defence Headquarters (NDHQ), considers whether or
not application of the effects-based approach could enhance the practice of strategic art.
He concludes that the effects-based approach does not enhance the practice of strategic art
because it offers no improvement over existing methods.
The fifth section of this book assesses the suitability of EBO for application in
practice. In the first essay in this section provides observations by Robert Vokac, a former
instructor at CFC and a graduate of the US Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies,
on effects-based operations as used in Canadian Land Force exercises and simulations. He
concludes that while an effects-based approach to operations (EBAO) is consistent with
existing practice, it has not yet been articulated in formal doctrine. Draft Canadian Army
doctrine that incorporates the effects-based approach in the application of combat power is
included at Annex B to this volume. This draft doctrine presents the Army’s views on how
effects-based concepts should be applied in its operations. Finally, Vokac observes that, given
the increasing complexity of planning, knowledge requirements for military professionals
are greater than ever. The second essay in this section, by Colonel Randy Wakelam, Director
of Curriculum at CFC, examines where the study of effects-based operations could best be
situated within the continuum of professional military education and the most effective
options for professional military education. The final part of this section is an essay by
Robert Grossman-Vermaas which explores the effects-based concept within a multinational
and interagency context. He concludes that all those who are partners in a campaign -
military and civilian - should be directly involved in the operational planning and execution

Introduction
stages of a coalition effort so that capabilities and efforts towards stability, development and
resolution of the conflict can be coordinated.
Concluding material is in Part VI, and the annexes in Part VII provide an
annotated bibliography by James McKay, the draft Army doctrine described above, a list of
abbreviations and a list of contributors to this volume.
Notes
1. See Allan English, Richard Gimblett, and Howard Coombs, “Beware of Putting the Cart before the
Horse: Network Enabled Operations as a Canadian Approach to Transformation,” DRDC Toronto, Contract
Report CR 2005-212 (19 July 2005) for a detailed discussion of these issues. Available at http://pubs.drdc-rddc.
gc.ca/inbasket/CEBsupport.050720_0917.CR%202005-212.pdf. Accessed 6 Sep 2007.
2. See for example C.R. Kilford, “On 21st Century Operational Art,” James Simms, “Keeping the
Operational Art Relevant for Canada: A Functional Approach,” Craig King, “Effects Based Operations: Buzzword
or Blueprint?”, Pierre Lessard, “Reuniting Strategy with Policy,” in Allan English et al., eds., The Operational Art:
Canadian Perspectives – Context and Concepts (Kingston, ON: Canadian Defence Academy Press, 2005), and
Howard Coombs and Rick Hillier, “Command and Control During Peace Support Operations: Creating Com-
mon Intent in Afghanistan,” in Allan English, ed., The Operational Art: Canadian Perspectives – Leadership and
Command (Kingston, ON: Canadian Defence Academy Press, 2006).

Part II - Origins, Concepts and Context
Effects-Based Operations: An Evolving Revolution
Chapter 2
Effects-Based Operations: An Evolving Revolution1
Colonel J.F. Cottingham
Military revolutions have taken place throughout history, and one of the greatest
may be underway now. They involve major changes in the conduct of war and in
military organization and administration, both reflecting and further influencing wider
technological, political, administrative, and social change.
Christopher Bellamy2
Introduction
While it may be said that change is constant, revolutionary change is not. Indeed,
while military revolutions that meet the criteria of Bellamy’s definition (above) have taken
place in the past, they have been rare. Some examples of military revolutions are the
introduction of the chariot and heavy cavalry, the adoption of firearms, the emergence of
standing armies in Europe, and the advent of nuclear weapons.3
Since the 1980s, many have claimed that we are in the midst of another military
revolution. In 1981, futurist Alvin Toffler advanced the thesis that there had been only
two military revolutions to that date (the agricultural and the industrial) and that the
world’s militaries were about to embark on a “third wave” of revolution with the dawning
of the information age.4 In 1984, Soviet military professional journals noted that the rapid
development and advancement of new non-nuclear technologies was “engendering a new
military-technical revolution in military affairs.”5 In the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf
War, many commentators declared that the US military was also experiencing a military-
technical revolution and, by the mid-1990s, the term “revolution in military affairs” or RMA
had been coined. The existence of the RMA was accepted in American official circles and
became a matter of policy when, in 1997, the US Department of Defence (DoD), in its
Quadrennial Defence Review (QDR), announced that it had been “involved in a concerted
effort to ‘transform’ the US military” based on four main objectives:
1. “To achieve the operational goals outlined in Joint Vision 2010 (JV2010)
(dominant manoeuvre, precision engagement, full-dimensional protection,
focussed logistics)
2. To bring about the cost savings necessary to pay for force modernization
3. To achieve a new, affordable force structure that can be maintained in the future

Chapter 2
4. To take advantage of the revolution in military affairs currently ongoing – the

‘RMA.’”6
To the US defence establishment, the RMA was not just about the introduction of
new technologies. The importance of the RMA instead rested with the changes that resulted
from adoption of a new technology. As Jeffery Barnett noted in his 1996 assessment of
probable future aerospace campaigns, “RMAs occur only when militaries fundamentally
change their concepts of operations (CONOPS) and their organizational structures to best
employ radical new technologies. RMAs are underwritten by technology but realized through
doctrinal change.”7 Accordingly, the US DoD’s highly influential internal think tank, the
Office of Net Assessment, defined RMA as follows:
A Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) is a major change in the nature of

warfare brought about by the innovative application of new technologies
which, combined with dramatic changes in military doctrine and opera-
tional and organizational concepts, fundamentally alters the character and
conduct of military operations.8
Following the 1997 QDR, and especially after Donald Rumsfeld was installed as
Secretary of Defence in 2001 in the George W. Bush administration, considerable effort was
expended to explore and exploit the so-called RMA to transform the US military.9 Other
nations soon followed with their own programs.10
One of the results of this effort was the creation of a concept that has come to
be known as effects-based operations or, more commonly, EBO. In retrospect, the term
EBO seemed to pop up out of nowhere. In the late 1990s, a few articles were published
in US military professional journals that used the term “effects” or “effects-based,” but
no comprehensive treatment of EBO as a concept existed. However, by 2000, EBO was
included as a subject of study in the curriculum of the US Air Force Air Command and Staff
College (ACSC).11 In the following year, Maris MCrabb wrote “effects-based operations
seem to be on everyone’s lips these days,”12 as a flood of books, articles and study reports
appeared on the subject.13 The term then began to appear in US Air Force, US Navy and US
Army transformation plans14 as well as in US Air Force and joint doctrine publications.15
Not surprisingly, references to EBO then began to appear in doctrinal publications and
policy statements of major US allies such as the United Kingdom (UK)16 and Australia.17 By
2004, even the CF seemed “poised to adopt Effects-Based Operations (EBO) as its modus
operandi for future defence and security operations.”18 Thus, it would appear that, in the
words of RAND Corporation’s Paul Davis, “it is undeniable that an EBO movement is well
underway and is influential.”19
The central thesis of EBO is best captured in the following quote:
In the … effects-based contest, the objective is to break the will or otherwise

shape the behaviour of the enemy so that he no longer retains the will to
fight, or to so disorient him that he can no longer fight or react coherently.

Although physical destruction remains a factor in EBO, it is the creation

of such a psychological or cogitative effect that is the primary focus of the
effects-based approach.20
A number of commentators recognize that ideas similar to the statement above have
appeared before in the warfare theory and history literature; therefore, they assert that EBO
is merely repackaging of an old idea. Others, however, contend that EBO is a fundamental
and revolutionary change in the nature of war. The purpose of this essay to contribute
to this debate by offering a thesis that both characterizations of EBO are correct because
there are two versions of EBO, one of which can be viewed as revolutionary while the other
cannot – at least so far. The first version, which operates in what Edward Mann describes
as a conquest paradigm,21 has mated new technologies to an old idea to produce what can
be argued is a revolutionary change in war fighting. The second version operates within a
broader context than war fighting, and, while this second version of EBO development has
the potential to be revolutionary, it awaits the introduction of technologies and tools that
will make it practical. Thus, it does not yet qualify as an RMA.
This essay is divided into three sections. In the first, the discussion will outline the
development of the central idea that generated EBO - that being primarily the evolution
of US thinking on airpower theory – in order to establish the intellectual foundations from
which EBO sprang. Next, the essay will trace the development of the first version of EBO
development into what has become a relatively mature and widely accepted concept for war
winning. Finally, the essay will demonstrate that a second version of EBO development,
aimed at a broader range of applications using all instruments of national power, has
emerged and is progressing toward maturity as a concept.
Setting the Scene - The Underlying Theory

The EBO movement and the passion of its advocates stem from wartime ex-
periences of young US Air Force officers who were appalled by the frequent-
ly mindless and ineffective use of airpower in Vietnam. When their turn
to lead came, they were determined to do better. The Gulf War was their
first great opportunity and, in fact, joint fires (not just Air Force fires) were
applied with decisive effectiveness as the result of sound thinking about
affecting systems, not just servicing targets. Operations were dramatically
different from anything previously seen. At that moment in history, a great
many concepts and capabilities came together after years of evolution.22
In order to understand EBO, it is first necessary to understand its origins. The

young air force officers who first conceived of EBO did so based on their experience, formed
from their first-hand operational observations and their professional military education.
In the US Air Force then and now (and in other services and in other nations) much of
an officer’s professional education is directed to understanding theories of war and, in the
case of air forces, the theories affecting the application of airpower. It follows then that, to
understand EBO, it is necessary to understand the theoretical baseline from which EBO

Chapter 2
thinking emerged. Accordingly, this section will review the development of airpower and
other theory that would have influenced the generation of US Air Force officers who started
the EBO movement.
As Carl Builder observed, in the United States airpower was originally conceived as a
“theory composed of three axioms:
1. Air power can be employed decisively in war by striking at the heart of the
enemy.
2. To use air power decisively, command of the air (i.e., air supremacy or superior-
ity is a prerequisite).
3. To gain command of the air and to use air power decisively in war, air power
must be centrally and independently controlled.”23
The roots of the first axiom can be traced to the end of the nineteenth century.
In parallel to our present time, this was a time of technical innovation and invention.
Successive waves of industrial revolution had transformed western societies and had produced
a general expectation that humankind could achieve any goal through the application
of science and technology. It was a time of inquiry and exploration, yet there were no
new frontiers on land left to conquer. It was also a time when tabloid newspapers were
becoming popular with increasingly enfranchised electorates who were experiencing a wave
of nationalistic sentiment. 24 Thus, both the means and the opportunity were provided for
the promise and then the reality of powered flight to capture the imagination of an informed
and influential public who accordingly demanded that their governments and their military
forces embrace and foster aviation development for the sake of national pride.
Not surprisingly, the popular sentiment that embraced aviation also revived an
age-old idea of waging war from the air.25 Perhaps the most conspicuous example of the
popularization of this idea and the degree to which an apocalyptic vision of air warfare could
be readily accepted by the public was H.G. Wells’ The War in the Air (1908), a novel that
depicted the destruction of civilization as a result of great air battles. Moreover, it was not
just the common citizenry that accepted the inevitability of devastating air bombardment;
diplomats and politicians seemed to have accepted the idea well before publication of The
War in the Air. In 1899, before the first flight of a Zeppelin airship and nearly five years
before the Wright brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk, the delegates to the Hague Conference
agreed to ban air bombardment for five years26 in a de facto recognition that this type of
attack would need to be regulated by the laws of war, but that it could not be prohibited
outright because it might “decrease the length of combat and consequently the evils of war
as well as the expenses entailed thereby.”27 Further deliberations resulted in “[A]nnexes to
the Second Hague convention of 1908 [that] explicitly prohibited air attacks on towns,
villages, houses, churches, hospitals and the like, even though the capability to do so scarcely
existed.”28
10
However, the first bombing mission by powered aircraft was not flown until 1911,
by the Italian Army over Tripoli against the Turkish Army; therefore, it was not the substance
but “the idea of airpower ...which was so compelling.”29 The small group of Italian aviators
started their bombing experiments with the pilot tossing hand grenades and eventually they
devised a bomb rack capable of carrying 10 bombs that could be released singly or in 10-
bomb salvoes. “The effect (of the Italian bombing) was probably greater on the press than
on the Turks. Immediately, the moral-humanitarian issue was raised. The Turks claimed
that a hospital had been hit, though the bombs used were basically hand grenades lobbed
from a somewhat abnormal distance.”30 This first use of aerial bombardment was widely
covered in the press and was noticed by France, Germany and Britain. The press coverage
of the bombing seemed to reinforce the notion that attack from the air was particularly
devastating and that the aircraft were already sufficiently developed to pose a serious threat.31
When the First World War began three years later, the British public believed that
air attacks would immediately commence. Indeed, there had been several Zeppelin scares
in Britain beginning in 1912, but when war broke out “Zeppelinitis” gripped the citizens of
London. Kenneth Poolman aptly describes the attitude at the time:
Londoners watched the sky uneasily, lay awake at night waiting for the
new terror of twentieth-century war to come, snarling and roaring over-
head. “Zepp” was an altogether new shape of fear in British hearts. There
had been no threat like it since Napoleon’s invasion barges, and then there
had been the Navy for protection, and the Militia if “Boney” had landed.
Now…what was there to prevent these monsters from scorching London
with their breath of fire?32
The “Zepps” did not appear because the German Navy’s airship division (Marine-
Luftshiffe) did not have the means to engage in strategic bombing in the earliest stages of the
war. However, the advocacy of the naval staff for a strategic bombing role during the initial
German attack in the west indicates that they believed that a strategic attack at the heart
of Britain would create physical and psychological effects that might break British will to
continue the war.
In a 20 August 1914 letter, the fleet commander who controlled the Marine-
Luftshiffe wrote to the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Behncke, arguing for a strategic
bombing campaign with London as the primary target because of its docks and because
it was the location of the Admiralty, the “nerve-centre” of the Royal Navy. The fleet
commander wrote:
The bombing attacks “may be expected, whether they involve London or

the neighbourhood of London, to cause panic in the population which may
possibly render it doubtful that the war can be continued. … In general,
air attacks with airplanes and airships from the Belgian and French coasts,
particularly with airships, promise considerable material and moral results.
They must, therefore, be considered an effective means of damaging Eng-
land.”33
11
Chapter 2
Accordingly, the fall of 1914 saw the production of the first joint air campaign plan
in history. The army and navy staffs collaborated to conduct a target analysis and to produce
what today would be called a “master air attack plan.” As Ernst Lehmann, one of the army’s
airship captains recalled after the war, the intent of the plan was to bring Britain to her
knees by attacking her strategic war making capability, her economy and the morale of the
British people. The targets “lay scattered throughout England – docks, arsenals, munitions
factories, warehouses, railway yards, and not least in importance, the Bank of England. …
If it (the Bank) could be destroyed England’s entire monetary system might be thrown into
confusion, and that would be one way of paralyzing the auxiliary industries in a war of this
magnitude.”34 The German staffs who prepared the plan were well aware of the British press
reports of various Zeppelin scares and reasoned that, if imaginary airships produced such
reactions, then real Zeppelins dropping real bombs would surely produce mass panic. As
Admiral Behncke concluded in one of his communications, “we dare not leave untried any
means of forcing England to her knees, and successful air attacks on London, considering the
well-known nervousness of the public, will be a valuable measure.”35
As it turned out, the Zeppelin bombing campaign was a failure. The defending
British Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) soon learned
that the slow, hydrogen-filled airships were highly susceptible to fire damage and quickly
adopted the use of incendiary bullets. The resulting combat losses in the Marine-Luftshiffe
were not sustainable and, in proportion, exceeded those of the submarine service.36 However,
by 1917, the German Army Air Service had developed the Gotha G-4 and the Staaken R-6
“Giant” bombers, capable of delivering bomb loads of 1,000 and 2,000 pounds respectively,
and beginning in May 1917, formations of 20 or more bombers were launched in daylight
raids against England.37
On 13 June, a formation of 18 Gothas attacked London, killing 574 people.

Ninety-two aircraft from home defence squadrons, training units and the RNAS responded
to the attack but no Gothas were shot down. A similar attack on 7 July resulted in 250
Londoners killed with the loss of only 1 Gotha to British fighters. “The bombing of London
in broad daylight on 13 June and 7 July caused intense excitement, almost amounting to
hysteria, in governmental and official circles.”38 Panicked Londoners were reported to have
assaulted “Royal Flying Corps officers in the street for alleged failures to do their duty.”39
These events were certainly not lost on the US Air Service officers serving in France.
One of these men was Lieutenant-Colonel Edgar Gorrell, the head of “Strategical Aviation,
Zone of Advance, US Air Service.” During his tenure in this position, Gorrell came to be an
advocate for the US acquisition of a force of between 3,000 and 6,000 bombers to be used
in a night bombing campaign against Germany, and it is clear from the historical record that
Italian and British thinking on the subject influenced him.
Gorrell actively corresponded with the Italian aircraft manufacturer Caproni on this
topic and sometime in October 1917 “Caproni collaborated with his friend Captain Giulio
Douhet40 in the preparation of a “Memorandum on the Air War for the US Air Service.”
This document urged that mass attacks made at night by long-range Allied bombers against
12
industrial targets deep within Germany and Austria definitely could overwhelm the enemy
by substantially reducing their war production at the same time that Allied production was
increasing. That same month Caproni gave Gorrell a little book signed by Nino Salveneschi
and entitled Let Us Kill the War: Let Us Aim at the Heart of the Enemy. Evidently written by a
journalist to represent Caproni’s views, this small, English-text book was a further exposition
of the concept of strategic bombardment.”41
Gorrell also collaborated with Major Lord Tiverton, who became the British Air
Ministry’s expert on bombing “target selection and related technical questions.”42 While
Tiverton was serving with the naval section of the British Aviation Commission in Paris
in September 1917, he authored a paper that laid out a detailed conceptual plan for
long-range bombing. His work identified target sets aimed at crippling the German war
economy, and included the location of bomber bases, numbers of aircraft required, expected
sortie rates, weather considerations, navigation problems and logistical issues.43 He shared
his thoughts and his paper with Gorrell who was also serving in Paris at the time. In
November, Gorrell produced a bombing plan for the use of American air power for General
Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), and his incoming head
of the AEF’s Air Service, General Foulois. Gorrell’s plan, an almost verbatim copy of the
Tiverton plan, ironically, “came to be known as the ‘Gorrell Plan’ [and] was later considered
paradigmatically American: the ‘earliest’ and ‘clearest’ statement of the ‘American conception
of the employment of airpower.’”44
Gorrell’s plan was not the only manifestation of evolving American thinking on the
employment of air power. The German collapse in the fall of 1918 provided additional food
for thought, as Lee Kennett observed:
Despite all the sophisticated gadgetry of the war, it had been at the bottom
a contest of wills and of endurance. Germany’s defeat offered eloquent
proof, which the Germans themselves were the first to accept. The German
Navy had scarcely seen action; not a single foot of German territory had
been invaded. Yet, at the end of 1918, the whole country suffered a sort of
collapse - a massive disintegration of confidence, of resolve, of belief in vic-
tory - which compelled the German government to sue for peace.45
The apparent psychological collapse of the German population certainly had an

effect on those attempting to analyze the British aerial bombardment of Germany in the
initial period after the war. For a number of reasons, the British post war reports placed
great emphasis on the “moral” (meaning “psychological”) effect of bombing on civilian
populations.46 Indeed, Hugh Trenchard, the first chief of the Royal Air Force (RAF) claimed
that “the moral effect of bombing stands undoubtedly to the material effect in a proportion
of 20 to 1.”47 On the other hand, the American study of the same bombing campaign, while
it also recognized the presence of a moral effect on German populations, concluded that:
“The three kinds of bombing that are of most importance are, first, that directed against war
industries; second, that against railroad lines; and third, that against an enemy’s troops in the
field.”48
13
Chapter 2
The American report went on to say:
In considering the first [bombing war industries] a careful study should be

made of the different kinds of industries and the different factories of each.
This study should ascertain how one industry is dependent on another and
what the most important factories of each are. A decision should be reached
as to just what factories if destroyed would do the greatest damage to the
enemy’s military organization as a whole. On these factories the entire
available bombing force should be concentrated until it is satisfied that the
factory is sufficiently crippled. Once the plan of bombardment is chosen it
should be held to religiously and a choice of immediate targets affected only
by weather conditions and airplanes available. Factories should be bombed
night and day successively as far as the weather will permit until the desired
results are thought to have been accomplished.49
Thus, by the end of the war, although they had not had the time to commence
a bombing campaign of their own, Gorrell and other American airmen in the AEF had
developed a conviction that aircraft should be used to conduct tactical actions (i.e., bomb
industrial targets) that would have a strategic impact (cripple the war economy that would in
turn shorten or end the war). Gorrell produced a History of the American Expeditionary Forces
Air Service, 1917-1919 that included a copy of his plan.50 This document, together with a
copy of the US Bombing Survey Report were held at the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS)
at Maxwell Field after the war and were often quoted in the tactical manuals produced by
the School and in the lectures delivered by its staff. In addition to American documents, the
ACTS staff also had ready access to translated copies of extracts of Douhet’s Command of the
Air51 and German accounts of the war in the air.52
By 1926, ACTS instructors had postulated that the US could use bombers to strike
at the “vital points of a nation’s structure” to achieve victory quickly and at the least cost. In
1933, Major Donald Wilson began to advocate a concept that called for the attack of very
specific targets that, if destroyed, would result in a collapse of the enemy’s economy and
strategic war making ability. 53
The ACTS conviction that modern, industrial societies were vulnerable to bombing
was later strengthened further by the experiences of the Great Depression. As Malcolm
Smith noted:
The supposed ability of the bomber to bring a war directly to the home
front, and to win the war there rather than in simply military conflict, made
frightening sense in a period of economic dislocation, mass unemployment
14
and political dissent…The idea that the bomber would be the decisive
weapon in any renewed war rested on a depressed faith in the future of
advanced industrial society, with its economic recessions and social divi-
sions. If indeed industrial societies were inherently unstable, how could they
withstand the rain of high explosive? It was easily argued that an attack on
important sectors of the economy could bring the entire structure crashing
down under the cumulative weight of its interdependence. 54
Additionally, the ACTS staff reasoned that in order to attack specific targets with
efficiency and certainty of destruction, excellent bombing accuracy was required. Studies at
ACTS found that night bombing could not achieve the required accuracy to destroy single,
factory-sized targets and the school’s staff concluded that “precision targets” could only be
successfully attacked during daylight. Since the danger to the bomber from anti-aircraft fire
was greater during the day at lower altitudes, it was theorized that US bombers should attack
from high altitudes in order to reduce combat losses. Thus, the doctrine of the high altitude,
daylight precision bombing evolved from ACTS’s work in the early 1930s to the point where
Air Corps doctrine in 1939 could be summarized as follows:
The most efficient way to defeat an enemy is to destroy, by means of bom-

bardment from the air, his war-making capacity; the means to this end is to
identify by scientific analysis those particular elements of his war potential
the elimination of which will cripple either his war machine or his will to
continue the conflict; these elements having been identified, they should
be attacked by large masses of bombardment aircraft flying in formation,
at high altitude, in daylight, and equipped with precision bombsights that
will make possible the positive identification and destruction of “pinpoint”
targets; finally, such bombing missions having been carried out, the enemy,
regardless of the strength of his armies or navies, will lack the means to sup-
port continued military action.55
In 1941, in anticipation of US entry into the Second World War, a small group
of former instructors from ACTS was given the task of producing an overarching air war
plan upon which to base American mobilization for war.56 They were given little time for
study and preparation and, not surprisingly, they turned to their experience for answers and
produced a plan that was strongly reminiscent of the First World War Gorrell plan and the
US bombing survey of 1919.57 Indeed, the goal of the Air War Plans Division’s Plan No.
1 (AWPD-1) was “to conduct a sustained and unremitting Air Offensive against Germany
and Italy to destroy their will and capability to continue the war and to make invasion
either unnecessary or feasible without excessive cost.”58 In order to accomplish this task, the
planners realized that they would need to determine as the first order of business, “a. Target
15
Chapter 2
systems in Germany whose destruction would accomplish the objective, and to establish
them in order of desirability…[and] b. Targets within target systems, and estimate the effect
of target destruction in terms of contribution toward the objective.”59
The planning team determined that before anything else could be done, it would
first be necessary to defeat the German Luftwaffe and accordingly identified this task as “an
overriding immediate objective.” Their next priorities for attack were electric power, the
transportations system, petroleum production and distribution, and morale, in that order.
AWPD-1 was later updated and became known as AWPD-42 (for the year of its
promulgation - 1942). Once the US had entered the war, however, it was realized that, in
the interests of unity of allied effort, the US bombing plan would need to be coordinated
with the RAF’s bombing campaign that was already underway.
The result was the Combined Bomber Offensive, which received its formal political
direction from the Casablanca conference, which began on 14 January 1943. The British
and American air staffs that attended the conference to work out their combined strategy
were prepared to hotly debate and defend their individual doctrines to ensure that the
combined strategy would fit their national political realities. In the end, a compromise was
reached whereby the US Army Air Forces (USAAF)60 would continue its daylight precision
raids and the RAF would continue its night area attacks, and, thus neither nation would
be forced to change its doctrine in order to conduct the bomber offensive. In essence then,
the combined offensive strategy was that the two nations would attempt to ensure that their
operations complemented each other. With both day and night bombing, it was argued,
Germany could be attacked “around-the- clock,” and the final wording of the Casablanca
directive reflected the compromise. The RAF’s Bomber Command and the USAAF’s 8th Air
Force were told:
Your primary objective will be the progressive destruction and dislocation of

the German military, industrial and economic system, and the undermin-
ing of the morale of the German people to a point where their capacity for
armed resistance is fatally weakened.61
Although the directive went on to provide a tentative order of priority for targets,
the deliberate ambiguity of the wording allowed each of the participants to interpret the
directive in their own way. The US interpretation is outlined in Table 2-1, which depicts
the evolution of the priority of targeted systems by American planners from AWPD-1 to
AWPD-42 to the Combined Bomber Offensive strategy. In each list it is possible to see the
echoes of the American interpretation of the lessons from the First World War in that the
plan is directed toward key German industrial “nodes,” where tactical action by individual (or
groups of ) aircraft would have the maximum effect on the overall conduct of the war.
16
Combined Bomber
AWPD-1 AWPD-42
Offensive
Target Priorities Target Priorities
Target Priorities
1. German Air Force 1. German Air Force 1. German Air Force
• Aircraft Factories • Aircraft Factories • Fighter aircraft
• Aluminium • Aircraft engine plants factories
Plants • Aluminium plants • Aircraft engine
• Magnesium plants
Plants • Combat attrition
• Engine Factories
2. Electric Power 2. Submarine building yards 2. Submarine building yards

• Power Plants and bases
• Switching
Stations
3. Transportation 3. Transportation 3. Ball Bearings

• Rail • Rail
• Water • Water
4. Petroleum Refineries and
4. Petroleum Refineries 4. Electric Power synthetic plants
and synthetic plants • Power Plants
• Switching Stations
5. Morale 5. Petroleum Refineries and 5. Rubber synthetic plants

synthetic plants
6. Rubber synthetic plants
6. Military Transportation
Armoured vehicle
factories
Motor vehicle factories
Table 2-1 - Progression of Targeted Systems from AWPD-1 to the Combined Bomber
Offensive Strategy62
The outcome of the Second World War bombing campaigns is a subject of debate to
this day.63 As Builder observed, “the AAF [US Army Air Forces] leadership came out of the
Second World War with the air power theory intact, despite considerable evidence that it was
flawed and incomplete. It was as though the Second World War had never occurred and the
spectre of the First World War still haunted its survivors.”64
17
Chapter 2
Following the war, the USAAF each set up commissions to study the results of the
European and Pacific bombing campaigns.65 In the final analysis, neither study was able offer
conclusive proof of the theory that airpower could deliver a “knockout blow” that would
compel an enemy to sue for peace.66 However, the positive spin placed on the United States
Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) by those who were committed to the concept of an
independent air force, coupled with the introduction of nuclear weapons into the theoretical
equation, ensured that, at least for some, the theory of strategic bombing was vindicated and,
therefore, carried into the Korean War by the newly-formed, and fully independent US Air
Force.67
The US Air Force realized that the Korean conflict would be seen by some to be
the first test of the usefulness of the new service and the theory on which it was based.
Accordingly, when that war was over, the US Air Force attempted to tread softly in
determining its “lessons learned” and concluded that the Korean conflict was “unusual”
and was “a very poor model for planning future operational requirements.”68 In fact, the
experience of the Korean War seemed to invalidate the assumption that industrial societies
were vulnerable to strategic bombing. Moreover, the Korean War presented evidence that
another underpinning of the strategic bombing theory – an assumption that all future wars
would be total wars – did not always hold true. For a new service whose existence was
based on the theory of strategic bombing in total war, the experience of the Korean War was
difficult to accept. Perhaps it is not surprising that the US Air Force dismissed Korea as an
anomaly and only grudgingly accepted the lessons learned about the employment of tactical
air power in that war.69
In the decade that followed the Korean War, the idea of the air-delivered knockout
blow was entrenched ever deeper in the psyche of the US Air Force. At the dawn of the
Vietnam conflict, the US Secretary of the Air Force, Eugene Zuckert, observed, “… there
were myths that died hard – especially the myth of Air Force omnipotence. A lot of blue-
suiters simply refused to believe that there was any war that couldn’t be won by air power
alone.”70
Tami Davis Biddle noted that post-Korean War manuals reflected the idea of
the omnipotence of air power. Drawing upon previous American air power theory and a
particular interpretation of Second World War II experience, they asserted that “long-range
bombers would strike the enemy nation itself so as to collapse the enemy’s capacity and will
to fight.” Davis Biddle observed that even though nuclear weapons soon made the concept
of precision bombing “absurd, the industrial fabric theory still took pride of place” as shown
by this extract from US Air Force doctrine published in 1954 and that was not revised until
1965:
“The fabric of modern nations is such a complete interweaving of major

single elements that the elimination of one element can create widespread
influence on the whole. Some of the elements are of such importance
that [their] complete elimination … would cause collapse of the national
structure …. Others exert influence, which while not immediately evident,
18
is cumulative and transferable, and when brought under the effects of air
weapons, results in general widespread weakening and collapse.” 71
Accordingly, it was not surprising that, when President Lyndon Johnson solicited
advice on the conduct of the Vietnam War from the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1964, the Air
Force Chief of Staff, General Curtis LeMay, recommended a massive aerial assault against 94
targets in North Vietnam.72 His recommendation assumed that a largely unrestrained attack
on North Vietnam was politically possible and that it was an inherently unstable industrial
society that was vulnerable to attack from the air. Unfortunately for the US Air Force, what
Johnson wanted from the military were solutions that would prevent expansion of the war,
not its intensification.
In the end, however, there were three major bombing campaigns mounted by the
US military during the Vietnam War: Rolling Thunder, Linebacker I and Linebacker II.
The first, Rolling Thunder, which began in March 1965, was intended to gradually increase
pressure on the North by attacking selected infrastructure below the nineteenth parallel
and by interdicting supplies flowing from the North to the Viet Cong in the South. The
operation was a failure for several reasons, including the fact that “the industrial sector of
North Vietnam’s economy was not a highly valued asset”73 and that the Viet Cong were not
susceptible to an interdiction campaign. As a popular-based guerrilla force, the Viet Cong’s
re-supply requirements from the North were small and they were able to control the pace of
their operations to meet the availability of materiel. The Viet Cong’s entire war requirements
were 34 tons per day, less than one per cent of the total imported into North Vietnam.74
Linebacker I, which began in May 1972, had essentially the same objective as
Rolling Thunder; however, by this time, two main conditions had changed that affected its
results. First, with improved US relations with China and détente with the Soviets, President
Nixon was confident that neither country would enter the war on North Vietnam’s side, and,
therefore his use of force in the conflict was essentially limited only by US domestic public
opinion. Secondly, after the 1968 Tet offensive, the Viet Cong had virtually ceased to exist
and the style of war had switched from a guerrilla war to a conventional war fought against
regular North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops. The NVA was dependent on secure lines of
communications to its rear for re-supply and reinforcement, and Nixon therefore approved
attacks on targets north of the twentieth parallel as well as the mining of Haiphong harbour.
The bombing campaign had an effect on the NVA’s ability to continue operations in the field
and forced it to discontinue its Easter offensive. However, Linebacker I did not end the war.
The final bombing campaign of the war, Linebacker II, has frequently been cited
as a good indication that victory can be achieved by strategic bombing in accordance with
the US Air Force’s guiding airpower theory. Also referred to as the “Christmas bombing
campaign,” it was launched on 18 December 1972 in an attempt to force the North back
to the Paris peace talks. Linebacker II lasted eleven days during which 20,000 tons of high
explosive were dropped on vital targets throughout North Vietnam in 2,852 sorties. Using
new technologies such as terrain-following radar and precision guided munitions (PGMs),
B-52 bombers, supported by F-111 fighter-bombers, conducted strikes at night while US
19
Chapter 2
Air Force and US Navy tactical aircraft conducted bombing by day. The bombing caused
considerable destruction to North Vietnam’s economic sector and military infrastructure,
and, on 29 December, when Hanoi indicated a willingness to return to serious negotiations,
the bombing ceased.
For the US Air Force and its supporters, Linebacker II was seen as a vindication of
the idea that had been the raison d’etre for the formation of an independent air force in the
US. Many air power advocates, shortly after the conclusion of Linebacker II asserted that,
if only President Johnson had unleashed air power to do its job in accordance with airpower
theory in the mid-1960s, then the costly Vietnam War could have been ended much sooner.
Immediate post-war US Air Force analyses typically concluded: “That the air weapon was
successfully employed in countless battles and campaigns is beyond question. Whether or
not air power could have ended the war on satisfactory terms was not tested.”75
Indeed, new generations of US Air Force officers were taught that the blame for the
Vietnam debacle was to be placed squarely on President Johnson:
Fearing escalation to a nuclear confrontation, President Johnson took

personal control of the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign (1965-1968),
selecting not only targets but also often dictating timing, ordnance loads,
sorties, and alternate targets. In a sense Johnson’s action was centralized
control run amuck, with all strategic, most operational, and many tacti-
cal decisions emanating from the president’s now infamous Tuesday lunch
meetings. The result was a campaign unresponsive to local conditions; a
campaign that lacked both operational and tactical flexibility. More impor-
tantly, the campaign was a failure despite the expenditure of three years of
intensive effort, much American blood, and uncounted treasure.76
The Vietnam War also completed a splintering of the US Air Force that had
commenced with the introduction of inter-continental ballistic missiles to the American
military inventory in the 1950s and 1960s. As Carl Builder observed:
As an institution, the Air Force started to fractionate once it shifted its

devotion from the unifying ends or mission of air power to its separate (and
unequally statured) means. Missiles and space were not the only areas ac-
cepted as different means and careers in the Air Force. If they could coexist
alongside the aviators, then so too could the long-suppressed fighter (pur-
suit) pilots. Tactical air power as another independent means and career
grew rapidly under the limited war theories of the 1960s. The Vietnam War
brought TAC [Tactical Air Command] into full bloom and put TAC pilots
into the senior leadership of the Air Force for the first time.
The fighter aviators … were suddenly released to pursue their own interests.
… Not only air power theory was neglected, the people who were now run-
ning the Air Force had no roots in the theory. Indeed the fighter pilots were
20
knights of the air who were prepared to battle for control of the air, but who
had lesser interests in supporting the ground war or striking at the heart of
the enemy.
With the ascendancy of TAC over SAC [Strategic Air Command] to the
leadership of the Air Force, the application of the theory of air power came
increasingly from the Army and its “AirLand” battle doctrine. Air power
theory had now devolved into deterrence theory, AirLand battle doctrine,
and the dictum of air supremacy. The first had to be shared with the civil-
ian strategists and the Navy, the second yielded the initiative to the Army,
and the third was of interest only to the aviators.77
Therefore, by the 1980s, the US Air Force had for all intents and purposes
abandoned the theory that had guided its development and operation since the First World
War. Its doctrine stagnated and the institution became more preoccupied with defending
its force structure in budget battles than it did with preparing the institution with the next
conflict.78 Working in this environment of intellectual stagnation was a generation of young
officers stinging from, what was in their view, an entirely avoidable defeat in Vietnam.79
They were ready for a new, guiding vision of airpower to be articulated. It was in this fertile
environment that the first version of what is now known as EBO occurred.
Resurrection – The First Version of EBO

The main catalyst for what would become a renaissance of air power theory was
Colonel John Warden, who first gained notice in 1988 with the publication of his book The
Air Campaign. Based on Warden’s thesis written while he was a student at the National War
College in the late 1980s, The Air Campaign was written before the fall of the Soviet Union
when military thinking was primarily directed toward the most likely scenario of a European
war between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact.
Moreover, since Warden wrote his thesis in a time of US Air Force doctrinal neglect, his
thinking was “heavily influenced by the most doctrinally prolific, if not up-to-date, service
– the US Army.”80 He therefore introduced the Army concepts of centre of gravity (COG)
and operational art to air power thinking.
Warden argued that theatre air effort should be planned and executed as a single-
service, all-encompassing air campaign aimed at directly accomplishing objectives at the
operational and strategic levels of war. He said that he had thought through “the problems
confronting an air commander or staff officer in preparation for planning and executing an
air campaign,”81 and he reasoned that a successful air campaign is contingent on a good plan
and a good plan is the result of a sound understanding of basic theory. Therefore, he began
the book with the basics, developing a general theory of how airpower could and should be
employed, and then gradually transitioning to a theoretical discussion of principles that must
be applied in the planning of an air campaign.
21
Chapter 2
Warden’s thesis may be summarized with four major points. First, the primary
objective in an air campaign is air superiority, for air superiority permits freedom of action
for one’s own air, land and naval forces. Second, after air superiority is gained, airpower is
best employed on the offence, to strike behind the enemy front lines and interdict his ability
to make war. Interdiction is the most efficient use of airpower because it is more efficient
to destroy an enemy air force on the ground than to seek fighter engagements to gain air
superiority. Interdiction attacks mounted against the enemy’s critical nodes or “centres of
gravity” (such as fuel supplies) can ground air forces as well as bring mechanized armies to
a halt. Moreover, not only can interdiction cut off enemy fielded forces from their sources
of sustenance, but it can also strike directly at the enemy strategic centres of gravity. Thus,
airpower may be the “key force” in a joint theatre campaign. Third, close air support is the
least efficient and therefore least desirable role for airpower. If a lack of resources compels
commanders to use air assets in the close air support role, this diversion of effort from air
superiority and interdiction should only take place when the situation on the ground is
desperate. Fourth and finally, numbers of aircraft matter; therefore, to ensure numerical
superiority at the culminating points in the campaign, air commanders should consider
holding air assets in an operational reserve. Thus, in The Air Campaign it is possible to see
a resurrection of the American theory of air power that began to be formulated in the First
World War, albeit expressed in the army language of operational art.
FIELDED MILITARY
POPULATION
INFRASTRUCTURE
SYSTEM ESSENTIALS
LEADERSHIP
Figure 2-1. Warden’s Five Ring Theory
22
After publication of The Air Campaign, Warden continued to refine his ideas
on the use of air power, and he published them in a 1995 article titled “The Enemy as a
System.”82 Echoing Gorrell’s 1917 plan and ACTS and USAAF thinking, Warden asserted
that any enemy might be viewed as a system of systems, and he visualized these systems as
five concentric rings (see Figure 2-1). The innermost ring is, in Warden’s view, the most
important. It comprises the leadership of the enemy organization, or as he describes it,
the brains, and eyes, and nerves that allow the organization to be purposely directed. Next
to the centre is a ring comprising those “organic essentials” critical to the existence of the
organization. In a state these would include energy and food supplies, physical resources
and economic means. The third ring, or the infrastructure ring, contains the transportation
networks. The fourth ring is the enemy population as a whole and the fifth and outer
ring is comprised of the enemy armed forces. Warden also states that war can be reduced
to a single equation where OUTCOME = (PHYSICAL) X (MORALE). He argues that,
traditionally, war has been focussed on attacks against the outermost rings, elements that he
considers to be the least important and the most easily reconstituted elements of an enemy
system. Moreover, he argues that in past wars too much effort was wasted working on the
morale factor of the equation, a factor that he considers too fickle to be realistically attacked.
In essence, his thesis is that enemies should be attacked from their innermost ring outward
rather than from the outside in, and that the attacks against the rings can (and should) be
aimed at physical targets in order to produce the desired outcome. Thus, with the exception
of leadership as a system category, Warden’s model bears an uncanny resemblance to the
categorization of target sets identified in AWPD-1 and AWPD-42.
Warden’s thinking was also influenced by Colonel John Boyd, the originator of
“the OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act) loop” concept.83 Boyd noticed from his
experience in air combat, that victory usually went to the pilot who was able to maintain
superior situational awareness (SA) and make the faster decisions. He theorized that
there was, in each engagement, a continuous process whereby each combatant gathered
information (observed), made sense of the data (oriented), chose an appropriate course
of action (decided) and then carried it out (acted). In Boyd’s experience, the victor in air
combat was the combatant who was able to make his OODA loop move faster (and thus stay
“inside”) that of his adversary. Boyd later applied his observations of tactical air engagements
to the higher levels of war, and he “hypothesized that this continuously operating cycle was
at play” at all levels of war.84
Boyd’s notion of exploiting time to force an adversary into decision paralysis

prompted Warden to think of how to achieve a similar state of paralysis with an air
campaign. The result was Warden’s concept of “parallel attack,” where he hypothesized that:
If a significant percentage [of critical targets] is struck in parallel, the dam-

age becomes insuperable. Contrast parallel attack with serial attack in
which only one or two targets are under attack in a given day (or longer).
23
Chapter 2
The enemy can alleviate the effects of serial attack by dispersal over time, by
increasing defenses of targets that are likely to be attacked, by concentrating
his resources to repair damage to single targets, and by conducting counter
offensives. Parallel attack deprives him of the ability to respond effectively,
and the greater the percentage of targets hit in a single blow, the more nearly
impossible his response.85
Warden’s concept bore an eerie resemblance to the US Air Force’s 1954 doctrine for
strategic attack:
Modern weapons permit us to deliver attacks against all activity within a

given area simultaneously. Modern firepower has so compressed the time
element that attacks on all vital targets of an enemy nation can be made al-
most simultaneously by relatively small forces. Thus, the capability exists to
deliver attacks which horizontally will destroy or seriously reduce the total
war making capacity of a modern nation. These effects will not be confined
to any one segment of the enemy nation but will disrupt his entire capabil-
ity. Control of the population and military forces will become virtually
impossible through loss of communication and organized control mecha-
nisms. Provided that the attack is delivered in sufficient weight in the short-
est possible time, collapse of the nation for war purposes will be inevitable.
The rapidity of the collapse will be directly proportional to the timing and
weight of the attack.86
Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Warden and a small “think tank” of
Pentagon planners known as “Checkmate” were called upon to prepare an air plan for the
upcoming US-led counter attack against Iraqi forces. Warden based his plan on the five-ring
model he had developed two years previously.87 To assist his team’s planning efforts, Warden
recruited Lieutenant-Colonel David Deptula, who “had fallen under Warden’s influence
a year or so earlier when he had worked for him in the Air Force Doctrine Division at the
Pentagon. Together, they had explored the high and low ground of aerospace doctrine and
war-fighting strategy. Deptula, an F-15 pilot and Fighter Weapons School graduate, was a
fast learner and quickly rose to the top of Warden’s inner circle.”88 After initial development
of the plan (code-named Instant Thunder), Warden and the majority of the Checkmate
team were effectively fired following a disastrous session with Lieutenant General Horner,
the Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC) for the coalition.89 Deptula, however,
remained in theatre and became the lead strategic attack planner, under Brigadier General
“Buster” Glossen, of the team (known as “The Black Hole”) that completed development of
the Instant Thunder plan.
The Instant Thunder plan that was finally executed was a compromise between
Warden’s purely strategic plan and a more tactically oriented approach that was in accordance
with the AirLand battle doctrine with which the Air Force’s Tactical Air Command was more
familiar. However, from an examination of the target sets that were attacked, it is easy to
see among them those that suggest aspects of the industrial fabric, or web, approach to air
24
attacks against an enemy that guided development of AWPDs 1 and 42 and the CBO plan.
The final Instant Thunder target sets were:
1. Leadership and command facilities
2. Electricity production facilities
3. Telecommunications and command, control and communications (C3) nodes
4. Strategic Integrated Air Defence Systems
5. Air forces and airfields
6. Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical research, production and storage facilities
7. Scud missiles, launchers, and production, and storage facilities
8. Naval and port facilities
9. Oil refining and distribution
10. Railroads and bridges
11. Army units, including Republican Guards
12. Military storage and production sites.90
The name of the plan provides a hint to its intent to achieve strategic paralysis. It
was “called Instant Thunder to contrast it with Operation Rolling Thunder’s prolonged,
gradualistic approach to bombing North Vietnam during the 1960s. Instead of piecemeal
attacks designed to send signals to enemy leaders, Instant Thunder was designed … in a
single week … [to] paralyze Iraqi leadership, degrade their military capabilities and neutralize
their will to fight.”91 It was intended to deliver death by a thousand cuts – simultaneously.92
However, despite its apparently devastating effects, the strategic paralysis that
the planners hoped to generate was intended to be temporary. The aim was to be able to
rapidly rebuild Kuwait and (a hopefully free) Iraq after the conflict;93 however, in order to
accomplish this aim while at the same time inducing strategic paralysis, the team recognized
that it would be necessary to depart from the accepted norms of targeting. In the preceding
three decades, the focus of attack was on destruction, and this focus is understandable when
one considers that for much of that time the means of attack was with nuclear warheads.
Moreover, the reasoning went that, in the past, the pace of war dictated the destruction of
targets to prevent their return to service for the duration of the conflict. However, in the
strategic paralysis construct, it was only necessary to achieve the effect of destruction for a
period of time long enough to induce the collapse of the enemy through paralysis. Thus,
planners wanted to measure success:
25
Chapter 2
…not by the amount of damage inflicted but by the effect produced (e.g.,
is the SOC [sector operations center] operating or not?). SOCs still operat-
ing after the first attack or returning to operation later could be re-attacked
as necessary. This proposal entailed an important conceptual shift from
‘destruction-based’ to ‘effects-based’ planning. Furthermore, using two bombs
instead of the eight recommended by the targeteers (note that both numbers
apply to precision weapons delivered by a precise, stealth platform) freed six
bombs for other targets and reflected a second conceptual shift: one should
apply economy of force and at the operational level as opposed to the tacti-
cal, because of the additional leverage gained through simultaneous, parallel
attack [emphasis added].94
Success in the Gulf War was quickly attributed in large measure to the innovative
use of air power,95 as President George Bush declared, “Gulf lesson one is air power… (it)
was right on target from day one.”96 It is therefore not surprising that the victory promoted
examination and study of the air campaign. Shortly after the war, Warden became the
Commandant of the US Air Force Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell Air Force
Base, Alabama (the former home of the Air Corps Tactical School). It was not long
afterward that the ACSC included “effects-based operations” as a subject of study, and
in 1995, Warden’s “The Enemy as a System” and Deptula’s Firing For Effect: Change in
the Nature of Warfare were published.97 Interest in EBO began to grow and, accordingly,
Deptula re-published both an updated version of Firing for Effect and an expanded version
entitled Effects-Based Operations: Change in the Nature of Warfare in 2001.98 Notwithstanding
the updates and additions in the successive iterations of his first essay, Deptula’s argument
remained essentially the same.
Deptula’s work is based on the idea of parallel warfare, which he also describes as
rapid decisive operations (RDO), a term that was introduced into the US joint lexicon in
2001.99 Using the analogy of series and parallel electrical circuits, he relates how “old” war
operations were conducted in a sequential fashion. In order to attack a target of value,
leadership for example, it was first necessary to conduct a series of attacks to gain access to
the intended target. One had first to destroy the enemy early warning radars, then his sector
operating centres (SOCs), followed by his airfields where his defensive interceptor aircraft
were based and finally his surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems before it was possible to
attack the final high value target (or target set).
With parallel attack, however, all of the targets (e.g., radars, SOCs, airfields, SAMs
and targets of value) are attacked simultaneously. He notes that hitting:
…all elements of an air defense system simultaneously facilitates attacks on

high value targets, but this still leads to a somewhat sequential application
of force. … This … can be accomplished with large force packages of non-
stealthy aircraft in discrete areas of a theatre or on a one-time attack against
a limited target set. However, the large force packages required to suppress
enemy air defences tends to limit the total number of areas struck in this
26
manner. To hit an entire theatre wide set of high priority targets requires
many attacks in a similar fashion.100
In other words, a parallel attack against defending systems is possible, but it is

inefficient. On the other hand, an attack that bypasses the defences and simultaneously
strikes on all classes of high value targets is the ideal:
The capacity for a simultaneous attack on the entire array of high value
objectives with little or no need to suppress enemy air defenses opens the
door to monumental changes in the conduct of war – enables surprise at a
tactical level, a larger span of influence, fewer casualties, paralyzing effects,
and shorter time to impose effective control over the enemy.101
Deptula observes that traditionally, war has been regarded, in a Clauswitzian

context, to be a “decision by force of arms” whose highest aim is always “the destruction of
the enemy’s armed forces.”102 He reminds us that the object of war is, however, to achieve
a positive political outcome,103 and that if a method of compelling a favourable political
outcome could be found that did not require the destruction of the enemy armed forces,
then costly force-on-force strategies could be avoided. The alternative method to force-
on-force strategies, he argues, is a strategy of control, whereby if one is able to control the
enemy’s instruments of power or, “the essential systems on which an enemy relies to exert
control,” then the desired political end-state may be achieved with significantly less force.104
To this familiar argument, Deptula adds a new twist - if less force is required to achieve
control, then more forces are freed up and available to undertake more controlling actions,
and this in turn eventually leads to the strategic paralysis where “the enemy has no choice
but acquiesce to the will of the controlling force or face ever increasing degrees of loss of
control.”105
Deptula acknowledges that the idea of targeting systems to achieve strategic

results is not a new one. What has changed is the introduction of new technology that
has made viable the air power theory that was developed in the first half of the twentieth
century. Precision weapons106 with accuracies in the order of single meters, resolve the major
difficulty encountered by American and British strategic bomber forces in the Second World
War.107 By 1999, a single B-2 bomber, armed with 16 independently targeted GPS guided
munitions, could do what would have taken 16,000 B-17 bombers dropping 144,000
bombs in 1943. 108 Similarly, stealth technology effectively negates the growing effectiveness
of SAMs and other air defence systems that have emerged since the Second World War. The
result of the two technologies is an efficiency gain of significant proportions:
A comparison of the first non-stealth aircraft attack in the Basrah area with
a wave of F-117 [commonly known as “stealth fighters”] strikes at the same
time illustrates the enormous leverage of the stealth/precision combina-
tion. The non-stealth package consisted of 41 aircraft attacking one target
with three aimpoints. The force package consisted of: four A-6s and four
Tornados dropping bombs on target; four F4-Gs providing suppression for
27
Chapter 2
a particular type of SAM; 5 E-6Bs jamming Iraqi early warning and acquisi-
tion radars; 17 F/A-18 fighters carrying radar-homing missiles to suppress
SAMs; four other F/A-18s providing air-to-air protection, and three drones
to excite the air defenses – 41 aircraft, so eight could drop bombs on three
aimpoints. At the same time, 20 stealth aircraft (F-117s) were targeted
against 37 aimpoints in other areas with an equal and even higher threat
intensity – a 1,200 per cent increase in target coverage using fewer than half
the number of aircraft.109
Thus, according to Deptula’s reasoning, the revolutionary technologies of precision

and stealth create additional means to conduct a paralyzing parallel attack. These means are
multiplied by then adding a concept that seeks only effects instead of destruction. What he
means by effects are those actions that “achieve effective control over an enemy, including;
render ineffective, negate, disable, prevent, neutralize, limit, reduce, stop, etc.”110 He offers
an example of this multiplication factor from his Gulf War planning experience.
Deptula and his team were trying to figure out a way to render the Iraqi air defence
system ineffective in the lead up to the coalition air attack. Intelligence had determined that
there were significantly more command and control (C2) nodes than originally thought.
Using previous methods, where strikes would have been conducted to destroy each facility,
Deptula and his planners would not have had enough stealth aircraft available to knock them
all out in a single blow as desired. However, he pointed out to his colleagues that it was not
necessary to destroy a system to render it ineffective. He recalled the discussion in a later
interview:
The point I’m trying to make is that you can’t just rack them [targets] up
and prioritize them and go from top to bottom. You have to look at what
you want to achieve in each one of those individual target sets, and maybe
you don’t have to kill the target to achieve your objective. Maybe absolute
damage and levels of destruction ought not to be your measure of merit
and, in fact, might not be what you really wanted to happen. … You know,
a 2,000-pound bomb can go off down the hall, it will make a heck of a lot
of noise and we won’t be dead, but I can guarantee you we ain’t gonna con-
tinue to sit here and drink coffee and carry on this conversation. … You’re
going to get out of there.111
Based on this reasoning, the plan was rewritten to drop only one 2,000-pound
bomb on each of the C2 nodes. Not only did this method work as planned and render the
air defence system ineffective, but it also “multiplied the number of stealth/precision strikes
for use against other targets – IOCs [interceptor operating centers], biological and chemical
weapons storage facilities, and other critical targets.”112
This merging of new technologies with old ideas permits, in Deptula’s analysis,
the ability for military forces to employ control strategies rather than the more traditional
strategies of attrition or annihilation. Moreover, he argues that control strategies call for
a re-examination of traditional force structures and overall war planning. Forces aimed
28
at attrition or annihilation war are by necessity large, complex and expensive. They must
be moved into theatre, supported and built up to war-fighting strength with sufficient
numbers and stocks of supplies and materiel on hand before they can be committed. Once
committed, they must be sustained, reinforced and regenerated. Then, when their job
is done, they must be redeployed and reconstituted. Therefore, they take time and great
cost to achieve their objective. On the other hand, Deptula argues that light, easy to
support, rapidly deployable forces can achieve the same strategic and operational effect in
a much shorter period of time. There is little question in the reader’s mind that Deptula’s
effects-based force centres on aerospace forces. Indeed, while Deptula argues that such
a force should be truly joint in nature (and not just meaning that each service is equally
represented), he strongly implies that it would require core competencies in rapid global
mobility, precision engagement, global attack, air and space superiority, information
superiority, and agile combat support – precisely the characteristics called for in the US Air
Force’s 1996 vision statement, Global Engagement: A Vision of the 21st Century Air Force.113
In essence, Deptula’s work, modified over time, is aimed at war fighting and operates
within a conquest paradigm. He is offering a new strategy aimed at controlling an adversary,
primarily through military means. He does raise the possibility of employing other
instruments of national power – such as economic and diplomatic – but he always considers
these other instruments within a framework of conflict aimed at conquest. His emphasis on
the end-state or the objective and the search for ways to create desired effects is essentially a
discussion of targeting philosophy and methodology. While he most likely did not develop
the idea on his own, his published works, speeches and interviews provide the best idea
of this first iteration of EBO. There are, however, several other works that view EBO in a
manner similar to Deptula or which offer supporting arguments for his viewpoint.
One of the earliest works in this vein is Jason Barlow’s Strategic Paralysis: An Airpower
Theory for the Present (1992).114 His analysis of targeting strategies introduces the term
national elements of value (NEV), a term that he defines as representing a cross section of an
enemy’s strength (as opposed to a centre of gravity that is, at least in the American literature,
normally thought of as a critical vulnerability). He raises four important points concerning
NEVs. First, they vary from country to country and, accordingly, careful case-by-case
analysis is required to ensure that an adversary’s NEVs are properly understood. Second, that
NEVs are inter-connected in a self-compensating manner such that the weakening of one
will tend to be compensated for by the others. Therefore, since attack on a single NEV yields
little probability of success, an attack on all NEVs is necessary to achieve strategic paralysis
and compel conflict termination. Third, the concept of NEVs is based on the assumption
that the adversary will react in a rational manner (and capitulate) in the face of simultaneous
attack on his NEVs. The final point (and related to the first) is the importance of accurate
and timely intelligence. Barlow hints at Deptula’s effects concept by stating that the point of
an attack is to paralyse, not obliterate, but he does not explore this concept in depth. Instead
he develops seven NEV categories that bear strong similarities to Warden’s five rings.
In an article published in 2000, Thomas Tighe and his co-authors also support the
concept of strategic paralysis.115 They contend that the enemy is a system of OODA loops
29
Chapter 2
and advocate conducting actions to create direct and indirect effects within this system
through, among other things, use of information warfare. In other works exploring aspects
of EBO, David Pendall, Robert Freniere, and others discuss the possibilities of emerging
technologies and advocate the creation and use of lethal and non-lethal, kinetic and non-
kinetic weapons to achieve desired effects.116
In other EBO-related works, David Fadok concludes that economic warfare is giving
way to control warfare.117 He observes that the information revolution may work against
Warden’s emphasis on leadership as the prime target if an adversary exploits the possibility
of distributed command architectures. He also observes that information dominance is
a prerequisite to effective control warfare. Expanding on this latter idea, Satterly and his
co-authors describe in detail a process – intelligence preparation of the battlespace – that
is essential to information dominance.118 Discussing both intelligence and information
flow, Price Bingham advocates adopting distributed architectures to manage the intelligence
information flow and to permit realistic simulation and training in effects-based scenarios.119
In discussing EBO and COGs, K. Noedskov provides a somewhat simplistic listing

of effects-based COGs, but also points to the need for a top-down planning and analysis
process.120 Edgar Knouse explores the idea of EBO and targeting, and offers a template (or
checklist) for operational planners explaining what, when, where, and how effects-based
targeting should be used.121
A critical army perspective on Deptula’s work is provided by Gary Cheek in an

article entitled “Effects-Based Operations: The End of Dominant Maneuvre?” In it, he argues
that the origins of effects-based thinking lie in air power theory. He concludes that “attempts
to vindicate Giulio Douhet and strategic bombing under the mantle of strategic attack,
effects-based operations and control warfare … may be an effective strategy for airpower
procurement, but is the antithesis of joint warfighting.”122 He also concludes that effects-
based targeting has a place when used with dominant manoeuvre and that effects-based
thinking, as an analytical approach to war can offer insights to ground commanders. Finally,
he observes that: “the proliferation of ‘effects-based’ terminology into doctrinal products
without regard to a defining construct makes it more problematic, if not dangerous.”123
Allen Batchelet agrees that the lack of a proper lexicon hampers meaningful debate on the
utility of EBO; however, he argues that elements of EBO can be found in army AirLand
Battle doctrine, and, therefore EBO is a “refining and broadening evolution of current Army
doctrine.” 124 He believes that the US Army should fully embrace the concept of EBO in its
own thinking and take the lead in defining it in the joint arena.
Cheek’s suspicion that EBO jargon was being used to justify procurements and
to support the US Air Force in inter-service rivalries in Washington is probably valid.
Nevertheless, his acceptance of the concept of effects-based thinking and of effects-based
targeting as an adjunct to manoeuvre, as well as Batchelet’s view that EBO is an extension
of current doctrine should not be surprising. EBO and manoeuvre theory share many
commonalities. As Martin van Creveld notes, the elements of manoeuvre warfare are
tempo, Schwerpunkt (meaning focal effort at the centre of gravity), surprise, combined
30
arms, flexibility and decentralized command, and that tempo is defined best by Boyd’s
OODA loop theory.125 Furthermore, EBO is used to attack centres of gravity to achieve end
states and objectives, and surprise is to a large extent a significant part of strategic paralysis.
Moreover, EBO concepts, such as economy, induced paralysis and attacking the adversary’s
will rather than his men and machines, can be found in the manoeuvrist approach:
British Defence Doctrine, published in 1996, defines the manoeuvrist ap-

proach to war as “one in which shattering the enemy’s overall cohesion and
will to fight, rather than his materiel, is paramount.” Manoeuvre warfare …
aims to apply strength against identifiable weaknesses; significant features
are momentum and tempo which in combination lead to shock action and
surprise. Emphasis is on the defeat and disruption of the enemy – by taking
the initiative and applying constant and unacceptable pressure at the times
and places the enemy least expects – rather than attempting to seize and
hold ground for its own sake. … Such an approach offers the prospect of
rapid results or of results disproportionately greater than the assets applied.
Hence it is attractive to a numerically inferior side, or to a stronger side
which wishes to minimize the resources committed. A key characteristic
of the manoeuvrist approach is to attack the enemy commander’s decision-
making process by attempting to get inside of his decision making cycle.
This involves presenting him with the need to make decisions at a faster rate
than he can cope with, thereby paralysing his capability to react.126
In order to address some of the confusion resulting from the lack of a common
understanding of EBO raised by Cheek and others, Maris “Buster” McCrabb authored, in
2001, a seminal paper entitled “Explaining ‘Effects’: A Theory for an Effects-based Approach
to Planning, Executing and Assessing Operations.”
The first task McCrabb undertakes is to define and explain objectives, actions, effects
and mechanisms:
An object is the focus of attention; the purpose, aim or goal of a specific ac-
tion. For example, a desired effect of “isolate the battlefield” has “isolation”
as the effect and “battlefield” as the object. Objects always lie in context.
By specifying the object, planners also provide the boundary between
phenomena. This is essential … because otherwise the problem space can
become huge and intractable. Indeed “isolating the battlefield” in a context
such as the Gulf War would be daunting. Better to seek “isolation of the
KTO”…127
An effect is the result of some action. In other words, actions cause effects.
Now the action can be direct or indirect. … Whether an effect is a direct
effect or an indirect effect depends generally upon point-of-view. An effect
is a direct effect if it directly results from a direct action. It is an indirect
effect if it results from the effect of some previous set of actions.128
31
Chapter 2
McCrabb explains how point-of-view generally determines whether an effect is

direct or indirect by using an example of observing a bridge being destroyed. It is easy
to link a bomb detonation to the bridge collapsing as a direct action-effect relationship.
However, linking a disrupted transportation system to the morale of frontline troops is
difficult. “Ultimately, it is very difficult to measure the extent to which the relationships
under consideration have caused desired, or altered undesired, preferences in the absence of
overt action. Therefore, a statement of direct effect would be, ‘If A is done then Z will result.’
However, the statement ‘If A is done, then Z will result and this will, in turn, cause X to
result’ is a statement about a direct effect causing an indirect result.”129
McCrabb continues:
A mechanism is the explanation on how an action causes an effect. Mecha-

nism explains cause.130 For example, “if A is done, then Z will result be-
cause of P and/or Q” is a statement of direct action (A) and its direct effect
(Z) as well as its mechanism (P) or mechanisms (and/or Q). A complex
effect is a combination or intertwining of effects in an instance of time.131
For example, “If A is done then B will result” is a statement of direct effect.
“If C is done then D will result” is a statement of a different direct effect.
“If A is done then B will result and the effect of B will, in turn, lead to E” is a
statement of direct effect (B) and indirect effect (E).
Combining two direct effects produces a complex effect (F) –
“The impact of B + the impact of D will lead to F.”
Combining a direct effect (B) and an indirect effect (E) also produces a
complex effect (G) –
“The impact of B + the impact of E will lead to G.”
Note that a mechanism or mechanisms can be added to each of these state-

ments by adding “because of _____.”
McCrabb then goes on to say that a cumulative effect is a complex effect that
occurs over time. The statement of complex effect used as an example above is now modified
to indicate a period of time and cause and therefore, becomes a statement of cumulative
effect and mechanism:
“The impact of B + the impact of D will lead to F over the next five days
because of 1, 2 and 3.”
32
It is important to note that the temporal aspect of an effect applies to each

primitive. A direct effect can be “delayed” in the sense that it is not instan-
taneous just as indirect and cumulative effects are delayed by definition.
This is another example of the point made often: effects are point-of-view
dependant.132
McCrabb argues that “Cascading effects are direct, indirect, complex or

cumulative effects that ripple through a system.”133 This idea presumes that an adversary,
when viewed from a system level, is the system of systems that Warden described. If all
sub-systems (and sub-sub-systems and so on) are interlinked as per Barlow’s NEV model or
Tighe’s system of inter-linked OODA loops, then an effect created in one subordinate system
can create effects in all other systems within the whole.
In addition to clarifying the terminology of EBO, McCrabb also makes another

important contribution to an understanding of EBO by reminding us that EBO is an
approach to operations, which overlaps with the two more familiar approaches to planning
and executing operations. “Taking a ‘top down’ approach starting from a theater commander
and ending at the executing elements, an effects-based approach is synonymous with an
objectives-based approach [strategy to task] at the top (assuming the theater commander is
concerned with strategic objectives, goals, or aims) and synonymous with a targets-based
approach at the bottom.”134 As he stated in a later oral presentation:
Target-based approaches identify the enemy entities or targets and sets out
to destroy them. The focus is on the physical effects at the target level only.
It has been the traditional—and bloody—approach to warfare for millen-
nia.
Objectives-based approaches look at the strategy at one level and turn that
strategy (such as the national security level) into objectives at the next lower
level (such as the theater or campaign level). The focus here is on objec-
tives to satisfy the higher level strategies. This became a commonly used
approach for planning, assessing, and executing warfare at all levels over the
past decade in the US Air Force.
With an effects-based operations approach one explicitly examines and

models the causes between actions and effects. Both physical and behavior-
al direct and indirect effects. Effects are the main focus. EBO encompasses
and supplements both target-based and objectives-based approaches. The
goal is to model the enemy as a system and provide dynamic real-time as-
sessment as opposed to the other approaches where no dynamic assessment
is made. 135 [Emphasis added.]
This overlap of approaches is graphically represented in Figure 2-2.
33
Chapter 2
McCrabb’s Comparison of Effects-Based, Objectives-Based and Target-Based Operations
Target-Based (TBO)
ID enemy entities, destroy them

Focus: physical effects at target level
Looks at 1st and 2nd order effects only
No dynamic assessment

Effects-Based
No explicit timing considerations
Objectives-Based (OBO) (Strategies-to-Task)

Objectives-Based
Strategies at one level become objectives for next
(Strategies-To-Task)

Focus: objectives at every level

Considers linkages between objectives and
strategies to achieve those objectives

No dynamic assessment
No explicit timing considerations

Target-Based
Effects-Based (EBO)
Address causality between actions and effects

Focus: desired effects (physical and behavioural)
Encompass both target and objectives-based methods
Models the enemy-as-a-system w/adversary reaction
Considers Direct, Indirect, Complex (synergistic),
Cumulative & Cascading effects

Timing explicitly considered
“Overcoming” mechanism stated & assessed
Figure 2-2.136 McCrabb’s Comparison of Effects-Base Objectives-Based and Target Based

Operations
As stated earlier in this essay, the US Air Command and Staff College began to
teach EBO and an effects-based planning process in the late 1990s. Reflecting McCrabb’s
observations, this is a top-down, integrated approach that begins and ends with a desired/
achieved end state.
As may be seen in Figure 2-3, the entire planning process takes place within the
context of the desired end state. First, the strategic objective is determined and from it, the
military objective(s). Objective (both strategic and military) determination is accomplished
taking the appropriate contextual elements (political, international, socio-cultural, economic,
leadership and environment) into account. From there the planning process enters the
realm of operational art, where centres of gravity are identified, desired tactical effects are
determined, targets identified and matched to assets available for employment to produce
a number of courses of action, from which the best would be selected for execution. The
selected course of action (COA) would then be turned into a master air attack plan (a
detailed plan) and issued as an air tasking order (a formatted order for the detailed execution
of the plan). Measures of success are monitored and analyzed during the execution phase
to verify that the end-state has been (or is in the process of being) achieved. If it is not
achieved, in whole or in part, the new situation becomes the starting point for a repetition of
the process.
34
END STATE
Contextual Elements Operational Art

Political Logistics Targeting Science
International Technology Deception
Socio-cultural Information Measuring Success
Economic
Leadership
Environmental Centre of Desired Target
Gravity Effects Systems
Stategic Military Course of Master Air Attack Plan

Objective Objective Action And Air Tasking Order
Forces Assets
Available Available
Figure 2-3. An Effects-Based Campaign Planning Model137
At this point, the development of the idea of EBO seemed to be complete. The
mating of the newly available revolutionary technologies of stealth and precision to the old
ideas of air power theory with a few updates in the form of parallel attack seemed to have
provided a complete solution for war fighting. From initial rumbles, EBO became a regular
subject of discussion in professional journals and attracted academic study. The concept then
began to be expressed in air force doctrine publications, and next crept into other service and
US joint publications. As part of this process EBO was included in the curriculum of US
Air Force professional military education schools. However, as will be shortly demonstrated,
development of the EBO concept did not stop there. In fact, almost as soon as this first
iteration of EBO hit the street, a second version of EBO was being developed.
Evolution – The Second Iteration of EBO

For many, the melding of stealth, precision and air power theory to create the
effects-based concept seemed to be a fundamental change in the way war was to be fought
in the future. For many officers in the US Air Force, parallel war, effects-based targeting and
the Gulf War victory had finally eliminated the stigma of the Vietnam War and assured air
power a place of prominence in the American military pantheon. Effects-based operations
was a change in the nature of warfare. However, while change did occur, it was not in the
way that some expected.
For nearly all of the twentieth century, war had been waged by ever larger, ever
more complex military forces. At the end of the Cold War, Western militaries emerged
from a long period of expansion to find themselves without a competitor that was capable of
successfully fighting the kind of war that they had prepared for. When Iraq invaded Kuwait
and attempted to fight a conventional war with the United States and its allies, there was
35
Chapter 2
no doubt as to who would be the victor. What was surprising to some was the speed and
efficiency with which victory was achieved. The scale of the victory made it abundantly
clear that no single nation or combination of non-Western nations could ever hope to defeat
the United States in a conventional war. For opponents of the West, conventional war had
joined nuclear war as an irrational act and a guarantee of self-destruction.
In the post-Gulf War period, the United States, NATO and various other, often ad
hoc, coalitions used their military forces on peace enforcement operations such as Somalia,
Haiti and the Former Republic of Yugoslavia. These operations presented new and largely
unforeseen problems to the soldiers on the ground and their commanders, as the tools,
structures and doctrines of conventional war were not necessarily transferable to the “three-
block wars”138 that marked the turn of the twenty-first century.
The experience of the use of air power in the former Republic of Yugoslavia posed a
problem similar to the one faced by proponents of conventional war. Attempts to conduct
control warfare within a conquest paradigm did not seem to work in the new situations at
hand. It was in this environment that the concept of EBO began to shift from operating
within a conquest paradigm to a success paradigm with a broader approach applicable in pre-
and post-conflict situations, as well as in war.
In many ways, the second iteration of EBO stems from the coercion theories that
had been debated since the end of the Second World War. Modern coercion theory descends
from deterrence theory that emerged in the early years of the Cold War; in particular, it
can trace its roots to Thomas Schelling’s ideas concerning the use of coercive diplomacy.139
Schelling begins his work with two very important observations. The first is that diplomacy
and armed force are different means that may be used to achieve a common end. His second
observation is that there is a difference between brute force and coercive force (i.e., between
unrestrained violence and violence that is controlled to achieve the interests of the state
by forcing the enemy to submit to the will of the state). From these principles, Schelling
reasons that since the power to hurt is what makes coercive diplomacy possible, then it is the
threat of violence (or latent violence) that is important. Therefore the incremental, controlled
application of violence with an accompanying threat of much further destruction is the best
method to apply force to compel an adversary to submit to the will of the coercing state.
In Bombing to Win (and subsequent works) Robert Pape builds on Schelling’s

work.140 Pape conducts an analysis of the history of strategic bombing and concludes that it
has failed in the past because those who have used it sought to coerce regimes to change their
behaviour by punishing its civilian populations. This is done through direct attack against
civilians themselves or indirectly through the destruction of infrastructure, economy, food
supplies and the like. Instead, he argues that coercion will only work if a denial strategy is
used in place of a punishment strategy:
Denial strategies target the opponent’s military ability to achieve its territo-
rial or other political objectives, thereby compelling concessions in order
to avoid futile expenditure of further resources. Unlike counter civilian
36
strategies, denial strategies make no special effort to cause suffering to

the opponent’s society, only to deny the opponent hope of achieving the
disputed territorial objectives. Thus, denial campaigns focus on the target
state’s military strategy.141
Pape identifies three main methods by which an enemy’s military strategy may be
defeated (denied): direct attack against the enemy’s fielded forces; strategic interdiction,
involving either isolating the enemy’s fielded forces from their sources of weapons and
supplies, or destroying these sources outright; and finally, operational interdiction, a
strategy that seeks to disrupt an enemy’s combat support functions and hence, his ability to
concentrate his forces at decisive points. Pape weighs the positive and negative characteristics
of each method and concludes that, while each method can produce favourable results,
it is those strategies that can be implemented by theatre air power (namely operational
interdiction and direct attack) that are more likely to be successful.142
Pape has his critics, but he has made an important contribution to the development
of coercive airpower theory in situations that include operations other than war.143 In
essence, he has presented the problem as one involving the complex interaction of a number
of variables. The great value of his theory is that it is not necessarily prescriptive, but it
establishes a framework for analysis of each situation on its own merits.
In the aftermath of NATO’s attempts to use coercive airpower in Bosnia and

Kosovo, much effort went into understanding what happened and why. The British and
American governments, as well as RAND, all produced reports on the NATO effort.144
However, the analysis of Daniel Byman, Matthew Waxman and Eric Larson is of most
interest to the subject at hand.145
Byman, Waxman and Larson see air power as a natural coercive device for several
reasons. First, the unique combination of speed and lethality afforded by aerospace forces
allows coercing nations to act and react quickly before they are presented with an irreversible
fait accompli. Moreover, the force wielded by air forces can be, if necessary, both limited
and precise, thereby allowing for a controlled escalation of violence. As well, the long range
and global reach of air forces (especially the US Air Force) can permit the application of
force without having to rely on forward operating bases. Finally, not only can air forces
deploy into a theatre of operations quickly, but they can also be withdrawn just as quickly.146
Therefore, the authors conclude that successful coercion is the result of the complex inter-
action of three factors - escalation dominance, military denial, and the magnification of third
party threats. Each of these will be discussed in turn below.
Escalation dominance is, as the name implies, the ability to adjust one’s level of
coercive force while at the same time denying one’s adversary the same freedom. There are
three components to escalation dominance. The first is that the coercing power must have
both the ability to increase coercive force as well as the will to do so. For example, it would
be pointless to consider a strategy requiring real or threatened escalation of force if one had
neither the means nor the will do so. Second, the coercer must have the ability to prevent
37
Chapter 2
the subject of his coercion from escalating. This can be accomplished through offensive
action (destruction of the coerced party’s capability to escalate), defensive action (mount
such an effective defence that the coerced party cannot conduct escalatory attacks), or a
combination of both. Third, and finally, the coercer must be able to neutralize his targeted
party’s counter-coercion activities. For example, the propaganda resulting from unintended
casualties due to collateral damage or from making unarmed peacekeepers hostages (as was
done in Bosnia) can be used to counter coercive purposes. Accordingly, the coercer must be
aware of his potential vulnerabilities and adopt measures to avoid or minimize the likelihood
of presenting the targeted party with counter coercion opportunities.147
The second factor, military denial, borrows heavily from the work of Robert Pape.
With military denial, the intent is to use air power to threaten the targeted party with
outright military defeat or at least to prevent him from achieving his military objectives. This
aim is accomplished by denying his means to success – his fighting forces. It is critical to
recognize that there are some instances where air power may be inappropriate to accomplish
this task because there are some irregular fighting forces (such as insurgents) that may be
very difficult if not impossible to target with air forces. However, when the targeted party
is counting on conventional forces to achieve military objectives, then air power can play a
significant denial role.
The final factor is magnification of “other threats to the adversary, such as external
military and internal threats.”148 A good example of the application of this factor was during
Operation Deliberate Force, when destruction of the Bosnian Serb Army heavy weapons
and denial of their theatre mobility altered the local balance of power and made the Bosnian
Serbs vulnerable to the Croatian army offensive. The use of air power to magnify internal
threats might not involve attack and destruction, but might instead include the use of air
transport to deliver food and arms to internal disaffected populations, or it may be used
for something as simple as dropping leaflets as part of a psychological operations campaign
aimed at undermining the targeted party’s moral influence.
At this point, it is worth emphasizing that Byman, Waxman and Larson did not
conclude that coercion could only be conducted by air forces, as they stated that, while
air power is an attractive coercive tool, it is “like any other instrument of statecraft.”149
Accordingly, while air power can play an important and perhaps even a decisive role in
successful coercion, coercion theory cannot justify the independence of air forces. And they
also noted that airpower should be applied as part of an overall coordinated strategy that
includes diplomacy, and perhaps other forms of military force that are both lethal and non-
lethal.
The work on coercion theory is important because it recognizes that the intent of
coercive actions is to change behaviour and not to force a military defeat. In fact coercion
might not involve the active use of military force at all (although the threat of its use could
be a factor), but might involve military capabilities in humanitarian or goodwill operations
to “win hearts and minds.” Coercion theory accepts a high level of complexity and the need
for the close coordination of all instruments of national power to create the desired strategic,
or grand-strategic, effects across the entire spectrum of conflict.
38
Coercion theory is also supported by a growing understanding that, “war, many

contingency operations short of war, and even foreign affairs generally occur in a complex
adaptive system (CAS),” because any system involving humans will be complex and
adaptive.150 Simple systems are linear where a single input will produce a proportional and
predictable output. Compound systems are those in which two or more external inputs
force a selection of a range of possible and predictable outputs. On the other hand, complex
systems react not only to external inputs from a given system, but they also interact within
themselves and with all other external systems. Adaptive systems are those that change
(either temporarily or permanently) in reaction to stimuli and therefore may react differently
in one instance than they do in another.151 Therefore working with CAS “requires adopting a
systems perspective. Behaviours … of CAS depend more on the interactions between agents
as they adapt to their environment and one another than the actions of any given agent or
set of agents. … [T]he ‘whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ leads to the concept of
emergence or the systemic behaviour not identifiable from studying the behaviour of the
parts.”152 Thus, work with CAS re-emphasizes the need to develop an approach that accepts
complexity and seeks a “top down” approach from the highest level possible.
Recently, alongside the work on coercion theory, debate within military circles has
produced an entirely different view of one of the essential components of the first iteration of
EBO – the concept of the centre of gravity.
As used in today’s military context, the concept of the centre of gravity originated
in the writings of Clausewitz. “The original text of Vom Kriege (On War) reveals that
Clausewitz used the term COG – expressed primarily as Schwerpunkt – more than 50
times, although not all of them refer to the military concept.”153 Since the rediscovery of
Clausewitz by Western militaries, and in particular the US military, in the 1950s, most have
incorporated the COG concept into their doctrine.154 However, since doctrinal work in the
US has relied almost exclusively on translations of Clausewitz, there is some confusion as to
his precise meaning based on differing translations of his work.155 As a result, the doctrine of
individual US services has used differing definitions of COG that suited their own particular
needs:
The US Marine Corps – a relatively small force designed for expeditionary,

ship-to-shore operations – prefers to strike at enemy weaknesses. Accord-
ingly, it tends to equate enemy COGs with key vulnerabilities. In contrast,
the US Army, which has the role of fighting large-scale battles and winning
major wars, sees the enemy COG as a “source of strength.” It tends to look
for a single COG, normally the principal capability – the opponent’s land
force – that stands in the way of marching on the enemy’s capital. Likewise,
charged with the mission of winning maritime wars, the Navy initially had
a concept of the COG that resembled the Army’s. Navy doctrine defined a
COG as “something the enemy must have to continue military operations
– a source of his strength, but not necessarily strong or a strength in itself.
There can be only one center of gravity.”
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Chapter 2
In keeping with the views espoused by some of the early air power theorists,
such as Billy Mitchell and others at the Air Corps Tactical School at Max-
well Field, Alabama, the US Air Force tends to see COGs as “vital centers”
located deep in the enemy’s heartland. In fact, John Warden, arguably the
most well-known modern air power theorist, has gone so far as to say COGs
exist within each of the five component parts (or rings) – leadership, organic
essentials, infrastructure, population, and fielded forces – that describe any
strategic entity. Warden defines a COG as “that point where the enemy is
most vulnerable and the point where an attack will have the best chance of
being decisive.” His principal argument is that airpower has the unique ca-
pability to strike at COGs simultaneously through “parallel” – as opposed to
serial – attacks, which can overwhelm and paralyse an opponent and thereby
prove decisive. Thus, the theory of parallel attack goes hand in hand with
the view that multiple COGs exist. The one tends to reinforce the other.
Air Force Doctrine followed suit.156
The divergence in definitions of COG posed a problem for universal acceptance

of EBO, since, in its first iteration, it was based upon the US Air Force’s understanding of
a COG. However, the disagreement over whether a COG was a source of strength or of
weakness was not the only important difference in interpretation among the US services.
Writing from an Army perspective, Milan Vego, in a 2000 article, observed that “a COG
is also often confused with the military objective to be accomplished. Experience clearly
shows that focussing on the objective without identifying and attacking the enemy’s COG
will invariably result in unnecessary losses of personnel, materiel and time – even despite
overwhelming combat power.”157 While Air Force doctrine agreed that objectives and
COGs were different, the Army interpretation of COG tended to take attention away from
objectives - the key to EBO - and overly emphasize an adversary’s fielded forces.
US joint doctrine attempted to develop an “authoritative consensus” on the concept

of COG in 1995, but, according to Echevarria, wound up defining “COGs too broadly
and offered no real method for determining them.”158 Recognizing the problem, the joint
doctrine writers turned to Joseph Strange’s “CG-CC-CR-CV” approach to COGs, which
was described by Echevarria as follows:
Strange correctly showed that the Joint (and individual service) definitions
of COGs were flawed and lacked precision. They tended to equate COGs
with vulnerabilities or strengths and paid too little attention to the psy-
chological centers of power. To rectify that, he offered a ‘fix’ that redefined
COGs as “dynamic agents of action or influence” or, more specifically,
“moral, political and physical entities which possess certain characteristics
and capabilities, or benefit from a given location/terrain.” Accordingly, his
CG-CC-CR-CV approach defined a COG, such as a key combat force, by
those critical capabilities (CCs) that enabled it to function as a COG. Those
CCs – the ability to shoot, move and communicate – in turn, have criti-
cal requirements (CRs) – such as open lines of communication and supply
40
– that enable the CCs to keep functioning. A CR that is inadequately pro-

tected … constitutes a critical vulnerability (CV). If attacked and neutral-
ized, these CVs would contribute to defeating the enemy’s COG.159
The resultant US joint doctrine mixed the US Army’s preference to engage the
enemy’s fighting force with Strange’s model.160 However, different, more EBO-friendly
definitions of a COG have since challenged the US joint doctrine definition of a COG.
However, Echevarria contends that Clausewitz’s idea of a COG was not a

capabilities-based concept as Strange suggests, but was, in fact, an effects-based idea. While
the two approaches to thinking about a COG are linked, they are decidedly different,
Echevarria argues:
Attacking specific capabilities produces certain effects. Achieving certain

effects often requires attacking certain capabilities. Indeed, one could say
that these approaches represent the proverbial two sides of the same coin.
In the capabilities-based approach, the first step is to identify the key enemy
strength that could prevent us from achieving our objective. In the effects-
based approach, the first step is to identify the effect we want to achieve and
then determine what actions we should take to achieve it. Frequently those
actions might go well beyond merely neutralizing or destroying specific
capabilities. In a manner of speaking, the capabilities-based approach seeks
a negative aim, destruction of a certain capability. The effects-based ap-
proach, on the other hand, pursues a positive aim because it seeks to create
a definite effect.161
In other words, unlike the traditional army view of COG voiced by Vega that the
focus of attention should be on the capabilities of the adversary, Echevarria’s argument
swings attention back to the objective and effects. That is not to say that objective and effect
are the same. In fact, they are not, because the effect is deduced from the objective and not
from the COG. 162 This distinction is quite important when one considers that sometimes
COGs may not exist at all and, when they do, they may be difficult to determine and/or may
be irrelevant to the objective. Moreover, this focus on the objective, instead of an adversary’s
capability, shifts the emphasis of analysis from destruction to creation of a condition or an
effect. And it was this shift that helped create the intellectual pre-conditions for a paradigm
shift from one of conquest to one of success.
It was against the backdrop of the development of these ideas about COG and the
changing strategic realities of the post-Gulf War world (accelerated by the 11 September
2001 terrorist attacks on the US) that the second version of EBO development began to
emerge at almost the same time as the first version was gaining popular attention.
In June 2001, the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA) released its New Perspectives
on Effects-Based Operations, a significant US DoD-sponsored study of the subject. The
authors of the report recognized that America was facing a new strategic context, and
41
Chapter 2
acquiring new capabilities that necessitated a change in thinking about military operations.
They recognized that the international challenges facing the US in the future would be
asymmetric in nature, where neither America’s national survival nor its vital interests would
be directly at stake, but that survival or vital interests would be an issue for the other involved
parties. Accordingly, they concluded that the US’s traditional focus on developing and
employing strong offensive capabilities in response to traditional conventional threats would
no longer always be militarily appropriate or politically acceptable. Thus, they concluded
that emphasis would need to be broadened from war winning to include “conflict prevention
and producing the desired post-conflict environment (winning the peace as well as the
war).”163 Consequently, they advocated a version of EBO that was aimed at this broader
spectrum of uses.
On the surface, the concept that they visualized was not much different from that
developed in the first version of EBO development. The subtle distinction between the two
can, however, be understood with an examination of the following passage from the study
report:
Effects-based thinking emphasizes:
1. the importance of linking all actions (political, diplomatic, economic, and mili-
tary) to operational and strategic outcomes;
2. continuous assessment of the effect and adaptation, as needed, of plans and ac-
tions to the reality of conflict;
3. thinking about the implications of actions and operations in terms of their sec-
ond-, third-, and nth-order effects; and
4. thinking about the implications and consequences of effects over time.164
In the first point, the inclusion of all elements of national power (diplomatic,
economic and military) seems similar to the thinking in the first EBO version. However,
with the inclusion of conflict prevention and long-term, post-conflict end states, the
importance of the non-military instruments of national power increase in prominence,
arguably by a significant margin. Coming from an institution (DoD) that at the time saw its
purpose as fighting and winning the nation’s wars, this deliberate inclusion in EBO theory of
other instruments of national power on a co-equal basis with military power was a significant
change.165 Moreover, since the aim in pre-conflict situations is usually not conquest but
behaviour change, the application of coercion strategies would arguably be more effective
in pre-conflict situations. Accordingly, the work in coercion theory that points toward the
coordinated application of all forms of national power contributes to a broader interpretation
of this first point.
The second point also illustrates a subtle change in emphasis. The first version of
EBO recognizes that without a continuous process to find out “what has happened, what
is happening and what needs to be done,” “and a willingness and ability to adapt, operations
42
[would] remain based on pre-conflict rules and assumptions.”166 However, in an expanded

concept of EBO, the level of complexity that this assessment process must cope with is
orders of magnitude greater than it would be if it were just part of conducting the relatively
simple task of monitoring the progress and results of a battle. Instead of conducting
assessment by using familiar metrics such as sortie rates, kill ratios, body counts, tons of
ordnance delivered, etc, the report’s authors noted that it will become necessary to find a
means to monitor the linkage between actions and outcomes. Therefore, in an expanded
EBO concept the assessment would not be focussed on the easily measured and more
readily understood physical domain, but would be aimed at the information and cognitive
domains.167
The third and fourth points could also be said to hold true in the first version of
EBO. However, if one thinks of pre- and post-conflict instead of conflict itself, then the
temporal perspective and scope of possible actions and effects changes. Pre- and post-conflict
effects may take a very long time to materialize and will probably tend to be cumulative or
cascading in nature rather than complex, direct effects. Again, the subtle change is not the
task per se, but its complexity.
To be sure, the IDA report recognized that the ability to conduct accurate and
timely assessments of complex adaptive systems has been to date, and will continue to be
for the foreseeable future, the limiting factor in EBO. However, the report also concluded
(perhaps naively) that emerging intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance technologies,
networks and networking would be able to meet this challenge sooner rather than later.
Also in 2001, Paul Davis echoed the IDA report’s views on the inadequacy of
current analytical tools for EBO and therefore the importance of developing new ones.
He indicated that much classified development work was in progress, and said that this
developmental work should be guided by five broad principles. First, analytical tools
supporting defence planning should focus on mission system capability to determine the
range of circumstances in which a mission system would be able to accomplish missions and
to what level of confidence. Second, the tools should fully consider the scope and magnitude
of uncertainty and deal explicitly with probability and chance using low-resolution
exploratory analysis and a family of models and games approach. Third, development
effort should be placed in qualitative modelling including cognitive modelling of decision
makers, key players and influential groups. Fourth, the tools should exploit a new base of
empirical information – produced through historical analysis and a combination of gaming,
realistic simulation and experimentation – instead of “best estimate” databases that tend
to be misleading. Finally, modelling should be based around C2 and decision-making in
the complex adaptive system rather than around mass and physical characteristics of forces.
Davis concluded by stating that the necessary improvements are feasible but further in-depth
work is still required.168
In 2002, Edward Smith published a lengthy work on the subject of EBO. His
view of EBO was similar to that expressed in the IDA report. He also recognized the
problems posed by the analytical challenges and by the need for unprecedented levels of
43
Chapter 2
situational awareness. In his view, the solution for problems with analytical tools for EBO
lies in enabling EBO through the exploitation of network-centric warfare (NCW), which he
defined as “the concept of linking all aspects of warfighting into a shared situation awareness
and shared understanding of command intent so as to achieve unity and synchronicity of
effects that multiplies the power of military forces.”169
Smith pointed out that NCW operations are not new and used the US Navy’s 1987
operation off Libya as a historical example of how the concept has already been employed.170
In the past, however, Smith contended that network centric operations were configured to
provide situational awareness for combat operations and not for EBO, which is focussed
on objectives rather than means and on human behaviour and decision-making rather than
on things. Thus, he argues that it is possible to mate EBO concepts with existing NCW
technologies to conduct EBO now. However, he also points out that the technologies
supporting NCW, namely sensor, information and weapons technologies, are in the midst of
revolutionary change and, accordingly, the increasing power of NCW will make EBO more
and more feasible.171
In shifting from traditional NCW to EBO, Smith tells us that the combat situational
awareness presently available in network centric systems, where all sensors, shooters and
decision makers have the same tactical “picture” and situational awareness, must be expanded
to produce what he terms “effects-based, shared situational awareness.” This capability would
provide two major additions to the tactical picture, according to Smith:
1. First, in effects-based operations we must deal with human beings and their re-
sponses to the stimuli presented by our actions. That means that our awareness
must somehow integrate large numbers of imprecise, often subjective data and
information containing complex variables into a picture that includes all of the
elements of the tactical and operational picture….
2. Second, because many of the inputs needed to fashion an effects-based aware-

ness are imprecise, subjective, and meaningless without a context, we must also
create and maintain a knowledge base to provide that context.
The knowledge base to which Smith refers consists of three major categories. The
first is knowledge of the adversary. This knowledge is much more than statistical databases of
inventories, locations, and so forth that are used today. Instead, this is knowledge of how the
adversary will perceive actions taken, orient them into their system of heuristics and biases
and formulate a response (essentially understanding their OODA process). This subjective
knowledge will best come from sound “local knowledge” provided by well-informed regional
analysts, local commanders on the ground, and the like. The second category is knowledge
of self. This includes the same understanding of the protagonist’s OODA processes and also
the protagonist’s objectives and intent. As Smith points out, in the interagency and often
multi-national environment where EBO will be undertaken, this knowledge of self will need
to be constantly updated because objectives and intent frequently evolve over time in reaction
to stimuli. Finally, knowledge of the situation provides the ability to know when something
has changed and how that change might produce cascading physical and psychological effects
44
in the targeted opponent and other players in the region. Here again expert advice will be the
key to developing this knowledge.
Thus, by combining the current NCW tactical pictures with expert advice into an
effects-based way of thinking and planning, EBO-based activities are currently possible to
a degree, Smith argues. However, he points out that the weakest area of the EBO process
is in providing feedback – particularly feedback on the status of behavioural change – an
assessment in common with the IDA analysis. Nevertheless, Smith contends that finding
practical solutions to problems with EBO will not be insurmountable and, when solved,
NCW will further facilitate EBO by increasing the number of options available to decision
makers. These solutions will increase access to significant amounts of knowledge rather than
information, thus permitting coordinated actions focussed on the creation of the right effect
at the right time.
The points made by the IDA report, by Davis and by Smith are echoed in other
sources. Most of them agree that the main challenge is to develop the analytical tools to
enable EBO. Some take the position that it is possible to do so,172 while others do not.173
In examining the organizational aspects of EBO, Charles Miller recognized that,

to properly employ all forms of national power in an EBO concept, unprecedented levels
of interagency coordination would be required. In order to implement this coordination,
he advocated significant organizational changes in the US defence and security system. At
the national level, he called for the creation of a Secretary-General for National Security
Affairs that would have the funds and the mandate to orchestrate interagency coordination
at the executive level of US government. He also argued that “military/civil commands,
departments, agencies, and foreign bureaus should be regionally aligned as similarly as
possible to simplify regional coordination and planning problems and to maximize efficiency
in the execution of interagency crisis operations.” 174 At the theatre level, he suggested that
focussed interagency planning, coordination and execution cells should be established at
each regional combatant command to help ensure that the military effort is planned and
executed in coordination with the overall national effort. He also observed that, to achieve
true interagency coordination, all players would need to follow a common planning process
and, accordingly, he advocated that the US military’s Joint Planning and Execution System
(JOPES) planning process (similar to the Canadian Forces operational planning process
or CFOPP) should be adopted by the “State, Treasury, Justice, and other US government
departments, agencies and bureaus.”175
The subject of a common planning process has also been discussed by Edward
Mann and others in Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Operations.176 They also recognized
that any military action would require close interagency coordination at the national level;
therefore, they proposed linking the military JOPES to a strategic planning process as shown
in Figure 2-4. In this model, the strategic cycle begins and ends with continuous research
concerning the strategic environment, which is followed by the development of political
goals, effects and desired outcomes. Next, an overall national strategy is determined and
then each applicable government agency is given its tasks. In this example, the tasks assigned
45
Chapter 2
to the military are then taken and analysed using its own specific planning process. However,
if Miller’s logic is extended to this model, the military planning process could be used by any
government agency and, ideally, all would use roughly the same planning process to analyse
their tasks. Once each agency has completed their first cycle of analysis, they then feed back
into the central strategic ring, for the re-evaluation and integration of the various plans. The
goal is that, with multiple repetitions, the plans should become increasingly coordinated and
remain absolutely focussed on high-level effects and objectives.
3. Strategy 4. Mission Parsing/

Development Integration
5. Effects
2. Policy Goals/ Assessment
Effects/Desired
Outcomes
1. Operations-Environment
1. Strategic-Environment Research
Research
7. Effects 2. Military
Assessment Objectives/Effects
Joint
Planning
6. Execution
3. Identification of
Military Strategy
5. Development of
Joint Operations Plan 4. Identification of
Centers of Gravity
Figure 2-4. Mann’s Idealized Functional-Planning Process177
Almost all of the ideas presented above were, to varying degrees, incorporated into
US joint doctrine publications. The first significant document to incorporate them was the
final draft of US Joint Forces Command’s 2001 white paper on rapid decisive operations.178
This document presented effects-based concepts as an enabler of RDO and recognized the
need for knowledge of self, adversary and environment, as well as network-centric tools such
as operational net assessment (ONA), common relevant operational pictures (CROP) and
joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) systems to achieve RDO’s effects-
based goals.
The Joint Forces Command RDO white paper also described how effects-based
decisive operations could only be accomplished through close coordination of the various
instruments of national power enabled by the following conditions:
46
1. A coherent interagency planning mechanism under the oversight of the Na-

tional Security Council. Supported by appropriate agencies, this planning process
will produce a broad range of options to apply DIME [Diplomatic, Information-
al, Military, and Economic] instruments of national power.
2. A secure and fluid collaborative information environment that integrates the

strategic and regional/operational levels for planning, execution, and transition
operations. Regional and functional CINCs [Commanders-in-Chief - now called
Combatant Commanders] will participate in the development of political-mili-
tary plans for crisis response. Information will flow from the operational level as
readily as it flows to it. This process must be supported by appropriate collabora-
tive planning tools.
3. A comprehensive, operational net assessment for selected adversaries. With

these ONAs, we will generate a wide range of feasible and innovative, ways and
means to resolve a crisis.
4. A virtual or actual interagency staff element to collaborate with agencies at the

strategic and regional/operational levels assigned to each regional CINC. Non-
military agencies will collaborate with the warfighter to develop plans to produce
desired effects.179
Moreover, the white paper also proposes coordinating all effects within a theatre
through the use of an effects tasking order (ETO), which specifies for all those US and
coalition actors in the theatre (military or otherwise) the specific effects desired by the theatre
commander, including who will create the effects and at what time. The all-encompassing
interagency nature of a document such as an ETO is supposed to ensure that all players
are aware what the others are doing and contribute to a common understanding of the
commander’s intent.
With the publication in 2004 of the US Joint Forces Command, Joint Warfighting
Center’s pamphlet, Operational Implications of Effects-Based Operations, it became apparent
that EBO has moved out of the shadow of RDO and was being examined in the joint area
as a stand-alone construct. The description of EBO in the pamphlet shows that the concepts
from the first version of EBO development had been supplemented with concepts from the
second version:
Effects-based operations seek to promote synchronized, overlapping, near

simultaneously executed actions conducted by US forces in joint operations
closely integrated with multinational and interagency partners to achieve
national and theatre objectives.180
47
Chapter 2
In this statement, the overlapping and near simultaneity of the operations recall the
parallel war and strategic shock provided in the first version of EBO, and the inclusion of
theatre objectives is also a hallmark of the first version. However, the inclusion of national
objectives, interagency partnering and synchronicity all point to the expansion of the original
EBO concept into the second version. The new definition of EBO also demonstrated the
broadened application of the concept:
Operations that are planned, executed, assessed, and adapted based on a

holistic understanding of the operational environment in order to influence
or change system behavior or capabilities using the integrated application of
selected instruments of power to achieve directed policy aims.181
From this definition it is clear that EBO is no longer limited to warfighting scenarios
and is aimed instead at altering the behaviour of some system. It is important to note here
that neither the word “enemy” nor “nation” is used in the definition. Thus, the door is open
to use EBO to influence adversaries, neutral parties or allies, whether they are nations,
non-governmental organizations or trans-national groups. Further, it is clear that all or only
some instruments of national power could be used as required to achieve the desired political
objectives and effects.182
The major components of EBO are described in the pamphlet as effects-based

planning, effects-based execution and effects-based assessment. All reside within a
collaborative information environment (CIE) and are linked by adaptation and ONA.
The collaborative information environment is the network-centric environment, discussed
by Smith (above), since it includes networks, knowledge management, decision support
capabilities and the like. ONA is an operational level process and product that is used to
conduct top-down analysis of a Political, Military, Economic, Social, Infrastructure, and
Information (PMESII) system. The key to this analysis is the location and understanding
of the linkages and nodes, which can be behavioural, physical or functional, in the targeted
system of systems.
The effects-based planning methodology described in the joint pamphlet is designed

to integrate the use of all instruments of power in time, space and purpose in order to create
the desired effects, which will in turn bring about the attainment of objectives. Working
from the objectives, EBO planners determine what effects will produce the directed
objectives and then use ONA tools to determine what actions taken on which nodes are
likely to produce these effects. These are then coupled with resources or forces to complete
the effects-nodes-actions-resources (E-N-A-R) linkages. Once these linkages are understood,
then various courses of action can be considered and tested before one is selected for
execution.
48
SITUATION: Two regional countries

Desired End State: Long-term peace and
are contesting ownership of a set of
stability in the region.
islands. Both state that they have longstanding
historical basis for their claims.
US Objective: Countries X and Y
Both are relatively equal in military
resolve disputed islands issue
capability, and Country X has placed
peacefully.
limited military forces on one of the
islands. Country Y is threatening a
Effect 1: Country X engages
military response. A war between the
Country Y in diplomatic efforts to
two countries would destabilize the
resolve crisis.
region, which the President considers a
threat to US vital interests. He has
MOE: Level of inflammatory
decided to intervene and has
rhetoric.
established several strategic objectives
that contribute to the desired end state.
Effect 2: Country X withdraws
Opposite is one objective, two sample
military forces from the island.
effects related to Country X, and
associated MOEs. Figure 2-6 expands
MOE: Level of forces on the
the example to include sample nodes,
island.
actions, and related measures of
performance (MOPs).
Figure 2-5. EBO Planning - Objectives and Effects183
US Objective: Countries X and Y resolve disputed

islands issue peacefully.
Effect 1: Country X engages Country Y in diplomatic

efforts to resolve crisis.
Nodes A & B: Country X and Y foreign ministries.
Action: US Department of State delivers MOP: Demarche delivered by US Ambassador

demarches. and content acknowledged by Foreign Ministers
Effect 2: Country X withdraws military forces from the

island.
Node A: Country X foreign ministry.
Action: US Department of State delivers MOP: Demarche delivered by US Ambassador

demarche. and content acknowledged by Foreign Minister
Node C: Country X forces on island.
Action: Joint force overtly monitors withdrawal. MOP: Low-level recon over flights conducted by
US and observed by Country X.
Nodes D & E: Country X and Y defense ministries
Action: JFC maintains visible US military

presence. MOP: Forces positioned and activities conducted
by JFC and observed by Countries X and Y.
Figure 2-6. Nodes, Actions and MOPs184
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Chapter 2
The expansion of EBO to include pre-and post conflict situations is abundantly

clear in the simple planning example given in the pamphlet. The figures from this planning
example (see Figures 2-5 and 2-6 below) are shown to illustrate the use of EBO in a conflict
avoidance situation where conquest does not produce success. Indeed, it is a situation
where the use of military force to achieve overall success would be construed as a partial
failure. (Note that in the Figures MOE is measure of effectiveness and MOP is measure of
performance.)
In this rather simple example beginning at Figure 2-5, planning begins from the top
down. First the desired end-state is identified and the national objective is deduced. After
analysis, two effects are identified (in this example) that will fulfil the objective. Next, at
Figure 2-6, nodes are identified and again, after analysis, actions that can work on or through
that node are identified. While this example has not gone so far as to identify resources, it
does identify measures of performance that hint at what the resource allocations would be.
Again, this is a very simple example but its importance here is to illustrate that nothing in the
example is about parallel war, strategic shock or precision weaponry as would be expected in
an EBO version-one scenario, because this is an example of an EBO version-two scenario.
Little is said in the pamphlet about effects-based execution other than that it is
normal military execution coordinated with the other elements of national power. However,
since the document calls for the establishment of a Joint Interagency Coordination Group at
the joint force commander’s (JFC) headquarters, it would appear that this entity would be
expected to facilitate or even conduct this coordination during the execution and planning
phases. Effects-based assessment receives little attention in the pamphlet, considering the
depth of discussion in the literature. However, this is understandable since this is a concept
paper that assumes that the technical challenges can be overcome.
The pamphlet acknowledges that there are many challenges yet to be overcome
to make this second version of EBO workable. In fact, the pamphlet recognizes that this
version of EBO may never be workable as it is currently envisioned. Nevertheless, the
pamphlet concludes that, “as EBO matures, the joint community can expect significant
refinements to the concept. This maturation is likely to transpire over a number of years.
But no matter the scope or rapidity of these developments, EBO will likely be judged as an
important stimulus to operational art.”185
As Plato sagely stated, “necessity is the mother of invention.”186 In the aftermath of

the Gulf War, it appeared that war had fundamentally changed from a pattern of increasingly
total war to one of asymmetric war waged over a spectrum of conflict that ranged from peace
to full-scale war. The first iteration of EBO, which was based on an assumption of traditional
modes of armed conflict and which operated with the paradigm of military conquest, had
only limited application in this new environment. Accordingly, some analysts began to
conceive of a new twist to EBO that would make it applicable in a much broader range of
50
situations where conquest was not the only means to achieve success.
This shift in thinking was aided by the body of work that had been built around
coercion theory, which held that action short of armed conflict could produce strategic
results. Coercion theory also introduced, among other things, an appreciation for the
complexity of the new problems, the multifaceted interplay of many variables, the need for
careful analysis of each situation on its own merits, and the acceptance that all instruments of
national power were relevant to finding desired solutions. Moreover, re-examination of the
centre of gravity concept within military circles permitted a change in focus from destruction
as an end to attainment of objectives, using a variety of means, as an end.
Much has been written on this more widely focussed, second version of EBO
development. The idea has caught hold and appears to have surpassed the original version of
EBO, as US joint publications are currently reflecting the conduct of EBO within a broader
paradigm of success rather than conflict. However, much work remains to be done to create
the necessary analytical and situational awareness tools to make the second version of EBO
truly practical.
Conclusion
The purpose of this essay was to contribute to the current debate over whether
effects-based operations is or is not a revolution in military affairs. The question is
complicated by the fact that there are two versions of EBO, one that seeks success in armed
conflict and one that seeks success in a much broader application.
What we now know as EBO began with a very old notion that shaped the
development of the US Air Force, the organization from which EBO suddenly seemed to
spring in the 1990s. The central idea behind EBO at that time was that there was a better,
cheaper and—in the long run—a more humane way of winning than to wage the total wars
that characterized much of the twentieth century. To many, the aeroplane offered the means
to achieve this dream.
Germany and Great Britain both developed the idea of strategic bombing during
the First World War as a means to sap the will of their adversaries and to force them out
of the fight by striking at their strategic heart. The idea of attacking certain key targets by
air was passed to the US through Lieutenant-Colonel Edgar Gorrell of the US Air Service
while he was in France. His writings then inspired the members of the Air Corps Tactical
School in the inter-war years, who then developed an airpower theory based on attacking key
nodal targets within the industrial web of the enemy nation. The theory that they developed
became the raison-d’etre of the Army Air Corps in its struggle for independence from its
parent service, and, thus this idea was deeply ingrained in its members as an enduring truth.
Indeed, the concept was so deeply ingrained in US Air Force culture that it survived the
51
Chapter 2
experiences of the Second World War, which provided inconclusive data to support existing
air power theory, and the Korean and Vietnam wars, which appeared, in some ways, to
contradict existing air power theory.
The stinging – and for many, the unnecessary – American defeat in Vietnam
provided fertile conditions for the resurrection of the idea that airpower could strike at the
strategic heart of an enemy, sap its will and force its capitulation. An update of this idea by
Colonel John Warden and the addition of manoeuvre warfare-like ideas such as Colonel John
Boyd’s OODA loop, produced a revised version of the original concepts of strategic bombing
using terms such as “parallel war” and “strategic paralysis.” Up until the 1990s, however, the
means to practically implement these concepts did not exist.
In the Persian Gulf War, or first Gulf War, these concepts were mated with new
technology in the form of stealth and precision weaponry with promising results. In the
aftermath of that war, General David Deptula introduced the term “effects-based operations”
and declared that EBO was a fundamental change in the nature of war.
Was this a revolutionary change? Viewed from a short-term perspective, it was not.
It could be seen as the continued evolution of an idea that had predated the introduction
of powered flight. However, viewed from a historical perspective, the first iteration of EBO
did seem to meet the requirements of an RMA. It could be argued that the technological
innovations developed in the first century of flight had finally reached the point, in the first
Gulf War, where they could be successfully applied to the airpower theory that had emerged
in the First World War and that, over the course of the century, these innovations had, in
fact, fundamentally altered the manner in which wars were fought. Accordingly, whether or
not this first version of EBO is revolutionary or evolutionary is a matter of perspective.
As the twenty-first century dawned, the US and other powers were faced with a new
strategic reality where their familiar pattern of conflict resolution by total war was no longer
operative. Success was no longer necessarily achieved by military conquest and, since EBO
as it was originally conceived was about military victory, it seemed to be a less useful and
revolutionary tool than it first appeared to be. This failing of EBO gave rise to the second
version of EBO development, which is intended to broaden the application of EBO into
areas other than armed conflict between nations.
Does this second version of EBO qualify as an RMA? The answer appears to be
“no” because this new version of EBO evolved from the original thinking that shaped the
development of airpower theory and has been supplemented by other ideas to create a new
way of thinking about how to achieve national objectives in peace and in war. It is, to
paraphrase Clausewitz, a continuation of policy by other means rather than just by means
of war. However, the second iteration of EBO still awaits the development of the practical
52
enabling technologies and tools such as those promised by the proponents of network-centric
warfare. Much as the first version of EBO was not practical until stealth and precision
weapon technologies had matured sufficiently, the second version of EBO will not be
practical until it is mated with the new technologies currently under development.
Notes
1. This chapter was originally written by Colonel Cottingham as a directed study paper for the War
Studies program at Royal Military College of Canada in July 2004.
2. Christopher Bellamy, “Military Revolution,” in Richard Holmes, ed., The Oxford Companion to
Military History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 587.
3. See Gunther E. Rothenberg, “Maurice of Nassau, Gustavus Adolphus, Raimondo Montecuccoli,
and the ‘Military Revolution’ of the Seventeenth Century,” in Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 32-63, and Martin van Creveld, “Technology and War I: To
1945,” in Charles Townsend, ed., The Oxford History of Modern War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
4. Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave (New York: Bantam Books,1989), and Alvin and Heidi Toffler, War
and Anti-War: Making Sense of Today’s Global Chaos (New York: Warner Books,1995).
5. Richard O. Hundley, Past Revolutions, Future Transformations: What Can the History of Revolutions
in Military Affairs Tell Us About Transforming the U.S. Military? (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1999), 7. Available
at http://www.rand.org/cgi-bin/Abstracts/ordi/getabbydoc.pl?doc=MR-1029&hilite=1&qs=rma. Accessed 24 Jul
2007.
6. Ibid., 75.
7. Jeffery R. Barnett, Future War: An Assessment of Aerospace Campaigns in 2010 (Maxwell Air Force
Base, AL: Air University Press, January 1996), 13. Emphasis in original.
8. Andrew Marshall, Director of the Office of Net Assessments in the Office of the Secretary of
Defense as quoted in Lothar Ibrügger, The Revolution in Military Affairs (NATO Parliamentary Assembly Report,
Science and Technology Committee, Report AR299STC-E, November 1998), np. Available at http://www.iwar.
org.uk/rma/resources/nato/ar299stc-e.html. Accessed 24 Jul 2007.
9. For an indication of the transformation activities being examined or implemented, see the US
DoD Transformation website at http://www.defenselink.mil/transformation/ . Accessed 24 Jul 2007.
10. Elinor C. Sloan, Allied Approaches to the Revolution in Military Affairs: Britain, France, Germany
and Australia (Ottawa: Department of National Defence, Directorate of Strategic Analysis, Policy Planning
Division, Policy Group Project Report No. 99.03, February 1999).
11. For a detailed outline of the ACSC understanding of EBO and its application at the time, see
Robert D. Pollock, “Roads Not Taken: Theoretical Approaches to Operation Deliberate Force,” in Robert C.
Owen, ed., Deliberate Force: A Case Study in Effective Air Campaigning – Final Report of the Air University Balkans
Air Campaign Study (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, January 2000), 440-5.
12. Maris “Buster” McCrabb, “Explaining ‘Effects’: A Theory for an Effects-based Approach to
Planning, Executing and Assessing Operations,” Version 2.0, dated 7 August 2001, 3. Available at http://www.
dtic.mil/jointvision/ideas_concepts/ebo.doc. Accessed 24 Jul 2007.
13. A good survey of the published literature may be found in Z. Zobaggy, Literature Survey on
Effects-Based Operations, A PhD Study on Measuring Military Effects and Effectiveness (The Hague: Netherlands
Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) 2003). Available at http://www.iwar.org.uk/rma/resources/
ebo/Literature_survey_on_Effects-Based_Operations.pdf. Accessed 24 Jul 2007.
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Chapter 2
14. See US Air Force, The US Air Force Transformation Flight Plan 2004 (Washington, DC: HQ
USAF /XPXC Future Concepts and Transformation Division, 2004), US Army, 2004 Army Transformation
Roadmap (Washington, DC: Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, US Army Operations, Army Transformation
Office, July 2004), and US Navy, Naval Transformation Roadmap 2003: Assured Access & Power Projection …
From the Sea (Washington, DC: Secretary of the Navy, 2003). All are available at http://www.iwar.org.uk/rma/.
Accessed 24 Jul 2007.
15. See US Air Force, Strategic Attack, Air Force Doctrine Document 2-1.2 dated 30 September
2003. Available at http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/service_pubs/afdd2_1_2.pdf. Accessed 24 Jul 2007. See also
US Joint Staff, Joint Doctrine for Targeting, Joint Publication 3-60, dated 17 January 2002. Available at www.dtic.
mil/doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp3_60.pdf. Accessed 24 Jul 2007.
16. For references to the UK doctrinal publications on the subject, see R.M. Poole, “Washing the
Windows? The Utility of Air Power in Nation Building,” Advanced Military Studies Course Paper, Canadian
Forces College, dated October 2004. Available at http://wps.cfc.dnd.ca/papers/amsc/amsc7/poole.htm. Accessed
24 Jul 2007. See also United Kingdom, British Defence Doctrine (Second Edition), Joint Warfare Publication 0-01
(Shrivenham, Swindon: Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre, October 2001).
17. Donald Lowe and Simon Ng, Effects-Based Operations: Language, Meaning and the Effects-Based
Approach (Canberra, Australia: Defence Science and Technology Organization, Department of Defence, 2004).
18. Craig King, “Effects Based Operations: Buzzword or Blueprint?” Advanced Military Studies
Course Paper, Canadian Forces College, dated October 2004. Available at http://wps.cfc.dnd.ca/papers/amsc7/
king.htm. Accessed 24 Jul 2007.
19. Paul K. Davis, Effects Based Operations (EBO): A Grand Challenge for the Analytical Community
(Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001), 1. Available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1029/.
20. United States, Military Transformation: A Strategic Approach (Washington, DC: Director, Force
Transformation, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Fall 2003), 36.
21. Edward Mann, Gary Endersby and Tob Searle, “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint
Operations,” Aerospace Power Journal 15, no. 3 (Fall 2001), np (online version). Available: http://www.airpower.
maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj01/fal01/vorfal01.html. Accessed 24 Jul 2007.
22. Paul K. Davis, Effects Based Operations, 2.
23. Carl H. Builder, The Icarus Syndrome: The Role of Air Power Theory in the Evolution and Fate of the
US Air Force (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003), 207.
24. Robin Higham, Air Power: A Concise History (Manhattan, KS: Sunflower University Press, 1988), 9-11.
25. The idea of aerial warfare predates the introduction of aircraft by a wide margin. See, for example,
David Wragg, The Offensive Weapon: The Strategy of Bombing (London: Robert Hale, 1986), 18, J.W.R. Taylor,
A History of Aerial Warfare (London: Hamlyn, 1974), 7, and Manfred Griehl and Joachim Dressel, Zeppelin!: The
German Airship Story (London: Arms & Armour Press, 1990), chapter 1.
26. Tami Davis Biddle, “Air Power,” in Andreopoulos Howard and Shulman, eds. The Laws of War:
Constraints on Warfare in the Western World (London: Yale University Press, 1994), 141-2.
27. W. Hays Parks, “Air War and the Law of War,” The Air Force Law Review 32, no. 1 (1990),
1-226. The quote is from the presentation of Captain Crozier, the US representative, to the plenary session of
Convention I from Parks, “Air War and the Law of War,” 12.
28. Alan Stephens, In Search of the Knock-Out Blow: The Development of Air Power Doctrine 1911-
1945 (Canberra, Australia: RAAF Air Power Studies Centre (APSC), APSC Paper No. 61, 1998).
29. Alan Stephens, “The True Believers: Airpower Between the Wars,” Alan Stephens, ed., The War in
the Air: 1914-1994, (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 2001), 55.
30. Higham, Air Power, 11.
54
31. In reality, this was far from the truth, for the major lesson of the Libyan campaign was the
airplane’s ability to conduct battlefield reconnaissance and develop timely and accurate intelligence on the enemy.
32. Kenneth Poolman, Zeppelins Against London (New York: The John Day Company,1961), 27-8.
33. Quoted in Douglas H. Robinson, “The Zeppelin Bomber: High Policy Guided by Wishful
Thinking?” The Airpower Historian 3, no. 3 (July 1961), 133.
34. Ernst A Lehmann and Howard Mingos, The Zeppelins: The Development of the Airship with the
Story of the Zeppelin Air Raids in the World War (New York: J.H. Sears and Company, 1927), 38-9.
35. Quoted in Robinson, “The Zeppelin Bomber,” 135.
36. Ibid., 147.
37. For a full accounting of the German Gotha raids and the British reactions to them, see Raymond
H. Fredette, The Sky on Fire: The First Battle of Britain 1917-1918 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution
Press, 1991).
38. Basil Collier, A History of Air Power (London Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1974), 68.
39. George Quester cited in Martin L. Fracker, “Psychological Effects of Aerial Bombardment,”
Airpower Journal 6, no. 3 (Fall 1992), np (online version). Available at http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/
airchronicles/apj/apj92/fall92/fracker.htm. Accessed 24 Jul 2007.
40. Douhet would later be heralded as one of the inter-war air power prophets. As Richard Hallion
explains in his introduction to Douhet’s The Command of the Air, “in the pantheon of air power spokesmen,
Giulio Douhet holds center stage. His writings, more often cited that perhaps actually read, appear as excerpts
and aphorisms in the writings of numerous other air power spokesmen, advocates – and critics.” See Giulio
Douhet, translated by Dino Ferrari, The Command of the Air (Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums
Program, 1998).
41. Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force,
1907-1960 (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, December 1989), 24.
42. George K. Williams, Biplanes and Bombsights: British Bombing During World War I (Maxwell Air
Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1999), 149. Before becoming a Major in the newly formed RAF, Tiverton
had been a Lieutenant in the RN.
43. Tami Davis Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare, The Evolution of British and American
Ideas About Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 38-9.
44. Ibid., 54.
45. Lee Kennett, A History of Strategic Bombing (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982), 51.
46. For an excellent analysis of the British post-war analysis see Chapter 6 of Williams, Biplanes
and Bombsights. His examination uses the RAF first-hand reports, which are corroborated in the most part by
independent, US first-hand reports, to demonstrate that, during and after the war, the RAF greatly exaggerated
the effect of bombing raids on Germany and sought to conceal the loss rates of RAF aircraft and crews. Williams
paints a picture of how first the RNAS, then the RFC and finally the RAF consistently portrayed a rosy picture
of strategic bombing to please a war weary British public and government during the war. After the war, the Air
Ministry perpetuated the optimistic viewpoint in an effort to justify the continued independence of the RAF.
While the positive spin was successful in protecting the RAF from its sister services in the post-war period, it also
denied the RAF the opportunity to learn the true lessons of the First World War.
47. Hugh Trenchard cited in Tami Davis Biddle, “British and American Approaches to Strategic
Bombing: Their Origins and Implementation in the World War II Combined Bomber Offensive,” Journal of
Strategic Studies 18, no. 1 (1995), 92.
48. The “US Bombing Survey, WWI (Summary)” report. Available at http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/
awcgate/ww1/bbg-ww1.htm, np. Accessed 24 Jul 2007.
55
Chapter 2
49. Ibid.
50. “Col Gorrell’s History of the US Army Air Service,” is held at The National Archives,
Washington DC. While copies or extracts of the document are not available on the internet, several references to
it are. These may be found with a Google search for “Gorrell’s history.”
51. Futrell, Ideas, Concepts and Doctrine, 39.
52. The Air University Library’s only English language copy of Ernst Wilhelm von Hoeppner’s
Germany’s War In the Air (published 1921) was an Air Corps Tactical School in-house translation from the original
German by J. Hawley Larned, Air Corps Reserve. The date of the translation is not indicated on the manuscript.
However, the library’s catalogue indicates the document was taken on charge in 1940. Copies of the same book in
German and French were available in the 1920s.
53. Robert T. Finney, History of the Air Corps Tactical School 1920-1940 (Air Force History and
Museums Program,1998), 63.
54. Malcolm Smith, “The Allied Air Offensive,” Journal of Strategic Studies 13, no. 1 (1990), 69-70.
55. Barry D. Watts, The Foundations of US Air Doctrine: The Problem of Friction in War (Maxwell Air
Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1984), 18.
56. A number of persons were involved in the production. However the “Task Force” that did most
of the detailed work consisted of four officers. They were Colonel Harold George, Lieutenant-Colonel Kenneth
Walker, Major Laurence Kuter and Major Haywood Hansell. Hansell’s account of the development of AWPD-1
can be found in Haywod S. Hansell, The Air Plan That Defeated Hitler (Atlanta: Higgins-McArthur/Longino &
Porter, Inc, 1972), 61-99.
57. AWPD received the task on 4 August. Hansell is unclear on when the first briefing on the plan
was given to Brigadier-General Twaddle, the G-3 of the War Dept General Staff as a rehearsal. It was presented
to the Chief of the Air Corps on 22 August and then to General Marshall on 30 August. Thus the team had in
the order of two weeks to produce a complete war plan from a clean sheet of paper. Hansell, The Air Plan That
Defeated Hitler, 60, 90, 93, 94.
58. Hansell, The Air Plan That Defeated Hitler, 76.
59. Ibid.
60. The name US Army Air Forces had replaced the designation US Army Air Corps in December 1942.
61. Quoted in Victor B. Anthony and R.A. Mason, The Combined Bomber Offensive In Europe (US
Air Force Academy, Colorado Dept of History, nd).
62. Information extracted from Hansell, The Air Plan That Defeated Hitler, 163.
63. See for instance Williamson Murray, “Did Strategic Bombing Work?” MHQ: The Quarterly
Journal of Military History 8, no. 3 (Spring 1996), 28-41.
64. Builder, The Icarus Syndrome, 141.
65. See Franklin D’Olier et al., The United States Strategic Bombing Survey Summary Report
(European War) (30 September 1945), reprinted in The Unites States Strategic Bombing Surveys (European War)
(Pacific War) (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1987).
66. See Alan Stephens, In Search of the Knock-Out Blow.
67. An interesting critique of the structural bias of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey has
been offered by Gian Gentile who notes “[a]s a collection of documents, as an establishment organisation, and
through the ideas of its civilian and military analysts, the United States Strategic bombing survey reflected the
American conceptual approach to strategic bombing. Two fundamental tenets formed the American conception:
strategic air power should be used not to attack ground forces in battle directly but instead to attack the vital
elements of the enemy’s war making capacity, and the air force must be independent of and coequal with the army
and the navy.” Gian P. Gentile, How Effective is Strategic Bombing?: Lessons Learned From World War II to Kosovo
56
(New York: New York University Press, 2001), e quote from p. 5. The evidence for the structural bias of the
USSBS is provided in chapter 2. See also Tami Davis Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality, 293.
68. In fact, the Far East Air Force report paraphrased the comments made by General Stratemeyer
in 1950 (at the beginning of the war). See Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine, 346. See also M.J.
Armitage and R.A Mason, Air Power in the Nuclear Age, Second Edition (Chicago: University of Illinois Press,
1985), 44.
69. More appropriately, this was a Second World War lesson re-discovered in Korea. See Futrell,
Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine, 347-51.
70. Eugene M. Zuckert, “Some Reflections on the Military Profession,” Air University Review 27, no.
1 (November-December 1965), 4.
71. Tami Davis Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality, 296-7. Extract from US Air Force Manual 1-8, Strategic
Air Operations (published in May 1954).
72. Mike Worden, Rise of the Fighter Generals: The Problem of Air Force Leadership 1945-1982,
(Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, March 1998), 140. LeMay was only offering a solution that
he firmly believed was correct based on his experience. After all, he was the last of a generation who had helped
to develop the original United States Army Air Corps bombing theory in the inter-war period and had been a
commander of US strategic bombing forces in the Pacific Theatre at the end of the Second World War.
73. Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1996), 189.
74. Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam (New York:
The Free Press, 1989), 134.
75. Ray Bowers, “Air Operations in South East Asia: A Tentative Appraisal,” in Hurley and Erhart,
eds., Air Power and Warfare: The Proceedings of the 8th Military History Symposium, USAF Academy 18-20 October
1978 (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1979), 325.
76. US Air Force, Air Force Manual 1-1 Volume II, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air
Force (March 1992), 114.
77. Builder, The Icarus Syndrome, 179-180.
78. See James A. Mowbray, “Air Force Doctrine Problems 1926-present,” Airpower Journal 9, no. 4
(Winter 1995), 21-41.
79. Builder estimates that approximately one third of the officer corps was seriously disaffected. See
Builder, The Icarus Syndrome, 22-23.
80. Bob Martyn, “Theories of Post-Cold War Air Campaigning: The Development of Air Power
Doctrine,” in Allan D. English, ed., Air Campaigns in the New World Order, Silver Dart Canadian Aerospace
Studies Series, Vol. 2 (Winnipeg: Centre for Defence and Security Studies), 50.
81. John A. Warden III, The Air Campaign: Planning For Combat (Washington, DC: National
Defense University Press, 1988), 169.
82. John A. Warden III, “The Enemy as a System,” Airpower Journal 9, no. 2 (Spring 1995), 40-45.
The article is a refinement of an earlier article published shortly after the Gulf War – see John A. Warden, III,
“Employing Air Power in the Twenty-first Century,” in Richard H. Shultz, Jr and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr, eds.,
The Future of Air Power in the Aftermath of the Gulf War (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press,1992),
57-82.
83. If Warden had not read Boyd earlier, he could not have escaped exposure to Boyd’s work while he
was Commandant of the Air Command and Staff College after the 1991 Gulf War. One of the crescents near the
college makes a loop around a B-52 bomber mounted on a pedestal. The crescent is signed as “OODA Loop.” For
a good summary of Boyd’s life and ideas, see Grant T. Hammond, “The Essential Boyd,” (nd, 1997?). Available
at: http://www.belisarius.com/modern_business_strategy/hammond/essential_boyd.htm . Accessed 27 Jul 2007.
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See also Jeffery L. Cowan, “From Air Force Pilot to Marine Corps Warfighting: Colonel John Boyd, His Theories
on War, and their Unexpected Legacy,” a Master of Military Studies thesis, Marine Corps University, academic
year 1999-2000, available http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/boyd_thesis.htm. Accessed 27 Jul 2007.
84. Philllip S. Meilinger, “Air Strategy: Targeting for Effect,” Airpower Journal 13, no. 4, (Winter 1999).
85. Warden, “The Enemy as a System.”
86. US Air Force, AFM 1-8, Strategic Air Operations (Department of the Air Force, 1 May 1954), 5.
87. Richard T. Reynolds, Heart of the Storm: The Genesis of the Air Campaign Against Iraq (Maxwell
Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, January 1995), 17. This would put Warden’s development of the model
in 1988.
88. Information on Deptula’s early doctrinal thinking can be found in Barry D. Watts, “Doctrine,
Technology and War,” a paper presented to the Air & Space Doctrinal Symposium, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL,
30 April -1 May 1996. Available: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/watts.html. Accessed 27
Jul 2007. Quote from p. 22.
89. Ibid., 120-30. Reynolds offers a detailed account of Warden’s final briefing of the INSTANT
THUNDER plan based on interviews and notes taken by the Pentagon briefing team.
90. Extracted from United States, “Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress,”
(April 1992), 148-151. Available at: http://www.ndu.edu/library/epubs/cpgw.pdf. Accessed 27 Jul 2007.
91. Ibid., 144.
92. Edward C. Mann, Thunder and Lightning: Desert Storm and the Air Power Debates (Maxwell Air
Force Base, AL: Air University Press, April 1995), 100.
93. Warden believed that a properly executed air campaign would result in the overthrow of
the Saddam regime by the Iraqi people. All members of his original planning team did not share this belief.
Moreover, there was concern that destroying Iraq’s infrastructure would inhibit Iraq’s ability to pay war reparations
after the conflict. See Reynolds, Heart of the Storm, 18, 54.
94. Mann, Thunder and Lightning, 106-107.
95. Subsequent analysis questioned the degree of success. See Grant T. Hammond, “Myths of the
Gulf War: Some ‘Lessons’ Not to Learn,” Airpower Journal (Fall, 1998). Available at: http://www.airpower.
maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj98/fal98/hammond.pdf . Accessed 27 Jul 2007.
96. “Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress,” 140.
97. David A. Deptula, Firing For Effect: Change in the Nature of Warfare (Arlington, VA: Aerospace
Education Foundation, 1995).
98. David A. Deptula, “Firing For Effect: Change in the Nature of Warfare,” Air Force Magazine,
Journal of the Air Force Association 84, no. 4 (April 2001). Available at: http://www.afa.org/magazine/april2001/
0401effect.asp. Accessed 27 Jul 2007. See also David A. Deptula, Effects-Based Operations: Change in the Nature
of Warfare (Arlington, VA: Aerospace Education Foundation, 2001). Available at http://www.aef.org/pub/psbook.
pdf. Accessed 27 Jul 2007.
99. By definition, “Rapid Decisive Operations is a joint operational concept for future operations. A
rapid decisive operation will integrate knowledge, command and control, and effects-based operations to achieve
the desired political/military effect. In preparing for and conducting a rapid decisive operation, the military acts
in concert with and leverages the other instruments of national power to understand and reduce the adversary’s
critical capabilities and coherence. The United States and its allies asymmetrically assault the adversary from
directions and in dimensions against which he has no counter, dictating the terms and tempo of the operation.
The adversary, suffering from the loss of coherence and unable to achieve his objectives, chooses to cease actions
that are against US interests or has his capabilities defeated.” United States, “A Concept for Rapid Decisive
Operations,” RDO White Paper Version 2.0, US Joint Forces Command, J9 Joint Futures Lab, 25 October 2001.
Available at: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2001/RDO.doc. Accessed 27 Jul 2007.
58
100. Deptula, Effects-Based Operations, 4.

101. Ibid.
102. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. and trans. (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press,1984), 99.
103. In Clausewitz’s words, “The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means
can never be considered in isolation from their purpose.” Ibid., 87.
105. Ibid., 6.
106. Precision weapons were not a new development in the Persian Gulf War; however, it was the first
time that they were available in large numbers and used to dramatic effect (which gave the impression that more
PGMs were used than was the actual case). In fact, the history of PGMs dates back to the First World War. For an
excellent history of the development of cruise missiles, see Kenneth P. Werrell, The Evolution of the Cruise Missile
(Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, September 1985). An assessment of the impact of PGMs on
modern warfare is offered in Richard P. Hallion, Precision Guided Munitions and the New Era of Warfare, Paper
no. 53, (Canberra, Australia, Air Power Studies Center, 1995. Available at: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/
smart/docs/paper53.htm. Accessed 28 Jul 2007. See also the Smart Weapons page on the Federation of American
Scientists for a good overview of US inventory and web based articles on the subject of PGMs at: http://www.fas.
org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/index.html. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
107. An excellent examination of these problems and their implications may be found in Chapters 4
and 5 of Tami Davis Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality.
108. This uses Deptula’s data from his example in figure 4. Deptula, Effects-Based Operations, 8.
109. Ibid., 10-11.
110. Ibid., 6.
111. Quoted in Edward Mann, et al. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Operations.”
113. US Air Force, Global Vision: a Vision for the 21st Century Air Force (Department of the Air Force,
1996). Available at: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/global/nuvis.htm. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
114. Jason B. Barlow, Strategic Paralysis: An Airpower Theory for the Present (Maxwell Air Force Base,
AL: School of Advanced Airpower Studies, May 1992) Available at: http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/
SAAS_Theses/SAASS_Out/Barlow/barlow.pdf. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
115. Thomas Tighe, Raymond Hill and Greg McIntyre, “A Decision For Strategic Effects: A
Conceptual Approach to Effects Based Targeting,” Air & Space Power Chronicles (11 October 2000). Available at:
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/Hill.html. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
116. David W. Pendall, “Effects-Based Operations and the Exercise of National Power,” Military
Review 84, no.1, (January-February 2004); and Robert W. Freniere, John Q. Dickmann and Jeffery R. Cares,
“Complexity-Based Targeting: New Sciences Provide Effects,” Air & Space Power Journal (Spring 2003). Available
at: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj03/spr03/freniere.html. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
117. David S. Fadok, “John Boyd and John Warden: Air Power’s Quest for Strategic Paralysis,”
(Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: School of Advanced Airpower Studies, February, 1995). Available at: http://www.
maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/SAAS_Theses/Fadok/fadok.pdf. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
118. Mark T. Satterly, et al., “Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace,” Air & Space Power Chronicles
(26 July 1999). Available at: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/Satterly.html. Accessed 28 Jul
2007.
59
Chapter 2
119. Price T. Bingham, “Transforming Warfare with Effects-Based Joint Operations,” Air & Space
Power Journal 17, no. 4 (Spring 2001); and his “Seeking Synergy: Joint Effects-Based Operations,” Joint Force
Quarterly no. 30 (Spring 2002); and his “Air Power Targeting Theory: A Key Element in Transformation,”
Military Review 82, no. 3 (May-June 2002).
120. K. Noedskov, “Systemizing Effects Based Air Operations,” Air & Space Power Chronicles (24 May
2000). Available at: http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/noedskov.html. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
121. Edgar M. Knouse, “Effects-Based Targeting and Operational Art in the 21st Century,” (Newport,
RI: US Naval War College, 5 February 1999). Available at: http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA363060 . Accessed
28 Jul 2007.
122. Gary H. Cheek, “Effects-Based Operations: The End of Dominant Maneuver?” in Williamson
Murray, ed., Transformation Concepts for National Security in the 21st Century (Carlisle, PA: US Army War College,
September 2002), 95.
123. Ibid., 96.
124. Allen W. Batchelet, “Effects-Based Operations: A New Operational Model?” in Murray, ed.,
Transformation Concepts for National Security in the 21st Century, 118.
125. Martin van Creveld with Stephen L. Canby and Kenneth S. Brower, Air Power and Maneuver
Warfare (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, July 1994), 3-7.
126. Christopher Bellamy, “Manoeuvre Warfare,” in Holmes, ed., The Oxford Companion to Military
History, 544.
127. McCrabb, “Explaining ‘Effects,’” 8.
128. Ibid.,10.
129. Ibid.
130. Ibid., 12.
131. Ibid., 16.
132. Ibid., 17.
133. Maris “Buster” McCrabb, “Effects Based Operations: An Overview,” PowerPoint presentation,
undated, available: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/af/ebo.ppt , slide 16. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
134. McCrabb, “Explaining ‘Effects,’” 32-33.
135. McCrabb, “Effects Based Operations: An Overview,” notes to slide 5.
136. Ibid., slide 5 graphics.
137. This figure is my own kludge of work presented by Deptula and by Larry Weaver and Robert
Pollock. Deptula’s chart can be found in Edward C. Mann, Thunder and Lightning, 93. The Weaver-Pollock
model may be found at Owen, ed., Deliberate Force, 441.
138. This phrase is attributed to General Charles “Chuck” Krulak, former Commandant of the
US Marine Corps. Source: BBC news report 30 March 2003, Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_
east/2901423.stm Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
139. Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence, (London: Yale University Press, 1966).
140. For example see Robert A. Pape, “Coercion and Military Strategy: Why Denial Works and
Punishment Doesn’t,” Journal of Strategic Studies 15, no. 4 (December 1992), 423-475; his “The Limits of
Precision-Guided Air Power,” Security Studies 7, no. 2 (Winter 1997/98), 93-114; and his “The Air Force Strikes
Back: A Reply to Barry Watts and John Warden,” Security Studies 7, no. 2 (Winter 1997/98), 191-214.
141. Pape, Bombing to Win, 19.
60
142. In addition to punishment and denial strategies, Page identifies risk and decapitation strategies
and dismisses both. Risk is based on Schelling and decapitation on Warden.
143. Pape’s critics include Barry D. Watts, “Ignoring Reality: Problems of Theory and Evidence in
Security Studies,” Security Studies 7, no. 2 (Winter 1997/98), 115-71; and John A. Warden III, “Success in
Modern War: A Response to Robert Pape’s Bombing to Win,” Security Studies 7, no. 2 (Winter 1997/98), 172-90.
See also Peter Faber, “Competing Theories of Airpower: A Language for Analysis.” Available at: http://www.au.af.
mil/au/awc/awcgate/au/faber.htm. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
Faber’s critique is based on a view that Pape’s theory is just an update of the traditional “outside in”
approach (he uses Warden’s ring model where Warden is advocating an “inside out” approach). In my view, this
is an overly literal interpretation of Pape. If one recalls that Pape’s objective is to deny/defeat the enemy’s strategy
rather than aim to destroy the enemy’s fielded forces, then Faber’s argument loses validity.
144. For Bosnian operations see Owen, ed., Deliberate Force. For operations in Kosovo, the British
Survey is Kosovo: Lessons From the Crisis (Ministry of Defence, June 2000), available at: http://www.kosovo.mod.
uk/lessons/. Accessed 28 Jul 2007. The US Air Force Kosovo report is The Air War Over Serbia: Aerospace Power in
Operation Allied Force Initial Report (Headquarters, United States Air Force, 25 April 2000).
145. Benjamin S. Lambeth, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo: A Strategic and Operational Assessment (Santa
Monica, CA: RAND, 2001); Stephen T. Hosmer, The Conflict Over Kosovo: Why Milosevic Decided to Settle When
He Did (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001); and Daniel Byman, Matthew C. Waxman, Eric V. Larson, Air Power
as a Coercive Instrument (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1999).
146. Byman, et al., Air Power as a Coercive Instrument, 3-4.
147. Byman, Waxman and Jeremy Shapiro present a thorough list of adversary counter coercive
strategies in Zalmay Khalilzad and Jeremy Shapiro, eds. Strategic Appraisal: United States Air and Space Power in
the 21st Century (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2002), 53-78. Available: http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/
MR1314/index.html. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
148. Byman, et al., Air Power as a Coercive Instrument, 39.
149. Daniel L. Byman and Matthew C. Waxman, “Kosovo and the Great Air Power Debate,”
International Security 24, no. 4 (Spring 2000), 6.
151. See Christopher D. Kolenda, “Transforming How We Fight: A Conceptual Approach,” Naval
War College Review 56, no. 2 (Spring 2003), 100-21.
153. Antulio J. Echevarria, Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity: Changing Our Warfighting Doctrine – Again!
(Carlisle, PA, Strategic Studies Institute, September 2002), 6. Available at: http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/
pdffiles/PUB363.pdf. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
154. See the introductory essay by Michael Howard, “The Influence of Clausewitz,” in Clausewitz, On
War Howard and Paret, eds. and trans., 43.
155. For an example see Echevarria, Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity, 9.
156. Antulio J. Echevarria, “‘Reining in’ the Center of Gravity Concept,” Air & Space Power Journal
17, no. 2, (Summer 2003). Available at: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj03/sum03/
echevarria.html. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
157. Milan Vego, “Center of Gravity,” Military Review 80, no. 2 (March/April 2000), 23-9.
158. Echevarria, Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity, 3.
159. Ibid., 4.
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Chapter 2
160. In 2002, the accepted US joint definition of COG was, “Those characteristics, capabilities, or
sources of power from which a military force derives its freedom of action, physical strength or will to fight.”
From the glossary of United States, JP 3-60 Joint Doctrine For Targeting, dated 17 January 2002.
161. Echevarria, Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity, 12-13. Links to many of his works are located on
the Clausewitz.com reading list page. Available at: http://www.clausewitz.com/CWZHOME/Readings.shtml.
163. Dennis J. Gleeson et al., New Perspectives on Effects-Based Operations: Annotated Briefing - IDA
Document D-2583 (Alexandria, VA, Joint Advanced Warfighting Program, Institute for Defense Analyses, June
2001), 2. Available at: http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA395129. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
164. Ibid., 6.
165. That the US Army’s purpose is to fight and win the nation’s wars is a common saying within that
institution and the source is obscure. Similar thoughts have also governed the US Air Force. See Builder, The
Icarus Syndrome, 265-68.
166. Gleeson et al., New Perspectives on Effects-Based Operations, 8, 11.
167. See Chapter 4 of Edward A. Smith, Effects Based Operations: Applying Network Centric Warfare
in Peace, Crisis and War (Washington, DC: DoD Command and Control Research Program, November 2002).
Available at: http://www.iwar.org.uk/rma/resources/ebo/effects-based-ops.pdf. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
169. Smith, Effects Based Operations, 61.
170. Ibid., 506-15.
171. Ibid., Chapter 2.
172. See for instance Desmond Saunders-Newton and Aaron B. Frank, “Effects Based Operations:
Building the Analytic Tools,” Defense Horizons no. 19 (October 2002). Available at: http://www.ndu.edu/inss/
DefHor/DH19/DH_19.htm. Accessed 28 Jul 2007. Kevin B.Glen, “The Challenge of Assessing Effects-Based
Operations in Air Warfare,” Air & Space Power Chronicles (24 April 2002). Available at: http://www.airpower.
au.af.mil/airchronicles/bookrev/glenn.html. Accessed 28 Jul 2007. Maris “Buster” McCrabb, “Effects-based
Coalition Operations: Belief, Framing and Mechanism,” a Paper presented to the Knowledge Systems for
Coalition Operations (KSCO) Conference, April 2002. Available at: http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/project/coalition/
ksco/ksco-2002/pdf-parts/S-ksco-2002-paper-02-mccrabb.pdf. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
Anthony Alston, “Network Enabled Capability – The Concept,” Journal of Defence Science 8, no. 3
(September 2003); and David S. Alberts, “Network Centric Warfare: Current Status and Way Ahead,” Journal of
Defence Science 8, no. 3 (September 2003).
173. See for example Carl A. Barksdale, “The Network Centric Operations – Effects-Based Operations
Marriage: Can it Enable Prediction of ‘Higher Order’ Effects on the Will of the Adversary?” (Newport, RI: US
Naval War College, 13 May 2002); and Christopher W. Bowman, “Operational Assessment – The Achilles Heel
of Effects-Based Operations?” (Newport, RI: US Naval War College, 13 May 2002). Available at: http://handle.
dtic.mil/100.2/ADA405868. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
174. Charles B. Miller, “Enhancing the Strategic Application of Effects-Based Operations Concepts”
(Carlisle, PA: US Army War College, 2002), 20.
175. Ibid., 21.
176. Edward Mann et al. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Operations.”
177. Ibid.
178. United States, “A Concept for Rapid Decisive Operations,” RDO White Paper Version 2.0.
62
179. Ibid., 40.

180. United States, “Operational Implications of Effects-based Operations (EBO),” The Joint
Warfighting Center Joint Doctrine Series Pamphlet 7, United States Joint Forces Command, 17 November 2004,
1. Available at: www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/other_pubs/jwfcpam7.pdf. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
181. Ibid., 2.
182. Ibid., 3. The pamphlet defines “directed policy aims” as the President’s objectives that comprise
the desired national end state.
183. Ibid., 13.
184. Ibid., 14.
185. Ibid., 30.
186. E. D. Hirsch, Jr. et al., eds., The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, 3rd ed. (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 2002). Available at: http://www.bartleby.com/59/3/necessityist.html. Accessed 28 Jul 2007.
63
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Future Perfect: Effects-Based Operations, Complexity
and the Human Environment1
Introduction
An epigraph in a recent article in the Economist opens: “Problems, problems” and

then describes in depth the litany of problems that have developed following the Coalition
intervention into Iraq:
Patchy public services, continuing guerrilla attacks on coalition troops,

widespread criminality, confusion over oil revenues and the financing of
reconstruction, and still no sign of a home-grown government—just some
of the problems facing Iraq’s interim leaders.2
The article continues, “did the Bush administration spend too much time thinking
about how to secure military victory, and too little working out what to do with the country
once Saddam Hussein had been removed?”3 Edward Luttwak amplifies this sentiment,
calling the Coalition strategy in Iraq a “childish deception” with “hugely ambitious aims”
and “unwinnable goals.”4 Furthermore, former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
has claimed in a recent article in Foreign Affairs that the Bush Administration has, with
its expanded war in Iraq, alienated many potential allies and has, in turn, made the global
fight against terrorism all the more difficult to win.5 At their core, these articles question
a traditional and decidedly Western “military” approach to warfare and its immediate
aftermath. This traditional approach, they claim, is incapable of accurately perceiving,
or forecasting, the results of such an approach because it is incapable of delivering to the
decision maker the desired strategic end-states, or “effects,” on selected political, military,
economic, and social systems.6
This chapter is based on a research note written for the Operational Research
Division that was the first in a planned series of monographs on the effects-based approach
(EBA). It explores the developing theory of the EBA, introduces effects-based operations
(EBO) as a concept of strategic and operational planning and implementation, and proposes
possible applications of this concept in the human and virtual environments of the future.
In so doing, it introduces EBO to the Canadian Forces and the wider operational research
communities and explores the implications for the Canadian government in adopting such a
concept.
The EBA offers a number of advantages, but to realize these advantages a number
of difficult challenges must be met, such as understanding how to effect a shift in the
64
Future Perfect: Effects-Based Operations, Complexity and the Human Environment
psychological mind-set of the decision maker, and how to apply suitably technology to the
overall planning, decision making, and analysis phases of an operation. Indeed, the effective
management and manipulation of large quantities of irregular data is necessary to maintain
a shared situational awareness both within and outside of an area of operations, as well
as to gain an understanding of what effects may be achieved and how; what the potential
unwanted or undesired effects may be, and what the potential secondary and tertiary
effects may be. If EBO are to gain acceptance and function with the appropriate level of
accuracy and speed, there is a requirement for governments and armed forces to adopt
alternative thought processes to assist operational planners in recognizing where challenges
and uncertainty may exist.7 In Canada, this may require a series of marked shifts that
include: 1) greater interagency cooperation and coordination of planning and operations;
2) greater inclusion of academia, international organizations (IOs) and non-government
organizations, and private industry in planning for crises, mitigating threats, planning for
“effects,” and developing a robust operational net assessment (ONA); 3) further exploration,
both nationally and with international partners, of the complex nature of warfare generally
and EBO specifically; 4) further studies of the requirements needed to operationalize EBO
over the long-term; and 5) and most importantly, a cross-government appreciation of the
advantages of adopting an effects-based approach as a major operating concept of the future.
This chapter has three sections, each of which will be explored more fully in
subsequent Operational Research Division publications. The first section provides an
introduction to the concept of EBO and ONA. The second section analyzes the concept’s
foundations in complexity theory, complex adaptive systems theory and networking theory.
The reasons for the inclusion of this section are two-fold. First, it is essential that one is
able to conceptualize the logic (and at times illogic) behind effects-based planning (EBP)
before one attempts to operationalize it. Second, EBO requires a rigorous understanding
of complexity, causality theory and the complexity of actions over time and space. Thus,
the operationalization of EBO has, as a functional requirement, a compelling need to codify
that which is traditionally non-linear (i.e., war). This is a daunting task. The third section of
this chapter expands the second’s logical stream. Even though EBOs are complex in nature,
“operators” (often military professionals) often wish to quantify that which is unquantifiable
in order to act (and react) in sufficient time to produce the desired effects. This being the
case, this last section explores technological requirements that may, in future, enable EBOs to
be conducted more efficiently through time and space.
What Are Effects-Based Operations?

During the Cold War, the dominant principle of Western military planning was the
ability to mass forces at key points whilst preventing or deterring an adversary from doing
the same.8 Success in battle, then, was understood by strategists and “operators” alike to
depend on the ability to overcome the adversary in a lengthy war of attrition. However, the
nature of conflict has clearly changed since 1991. Conflict is no longer limited to attritional,
linear battlefronts and mass manouevre. As clearly demonstrated during recent events in
Afghanistan and Iraq, the historic focus on achieving military superiority at the strategic,
operational or tactical levels should be considered perfunctory steps towards the achievement
65
Chapter 3
of strategic military, economic and diplomatic aims.9 Increasingly, conflict has become
akin to a complex adaptive system that operates within the complex environments such as
terrorism, peace support operations, and regime change, as shown in Figure 3-1. Moreover,
the complexity of warfare has come to include cyberspace, the nano-dimension, space, and
the biological and chemical environments. Operations to attend to such factors and threats
will, therefore, require an equally adaptive approach.
Figure 3-1. Conflict Shift and Complexity
First of all, the concept of EBO is linked to the effort to leverage a nation’s (or a
coalition’s) strategic capabilities at the political, economic, technological, and information
networking levels in order to achieve politically satisfactory outcomes for a nation or
coalition. It is, at the same time, an intrinsically psychological concept, linking proposed
actions to achieve physical and psychological results at the operational level. Here,
psychological results may include the ability to affect an adversary’s will to act, or, the ability
to affect through dissuasion or deterrence an ability to act in some way.
Focussing merely on the degradation of an adversary’s military combat power does

not represent a holistic approach to future operations. These operations will likely place
increasing emphasis on establishing influence over the mind of an adversary whilst keeping
casualties and collateral damage to a minimum. Conceptually, EBO may enable desired
66
aims to be achieved without the need for attritional warfare, although success is more likely
to be achieved through a combination of both physical and psychological effects. Of course,
a credible war-fighting capability must always buttress psychological capabilities. Canada’s
military capability, for example, is one component of a reductionist pillar of the three-
dimensional principles of foreign affairs that include diplomacy, defence and development.
This is known as the 3-D defensive policy, in which strategic success will rely on being able to
identify the end-states, or, effects, that will lead to campaign success and being able to deploy
the optimum mix of capabilities with which to achieve them. Clearly, Canadian values may
dictate that operations abroad include complementary diplomatic measures such as sanction,
financial incentives, and trade-offs, just as easily as the deployment of a peacekeeping force.
Alternatively, of course, such actions may also include the offer of developmental aid and
reconstruction assistance at a level equal to or greater than that of the defence option.
Secondly, EBO also seeks to control the duration and gravity of a crisis or conflict,
allowing nation states to achieve strategic objectives at a minimal cost, thereby assisting
decision makers to achieve desired effects, which may be pursued under the primary
objectives of physical and psychological effectiveness.10 This juxtaposition of effectiveness can
incorporate quantitative and qualitative measures and must consider the relative relationships
between cascading, unintended, or unwanted secondary and tertiary effects. As such, EBO
is very much rooted in theories of complexity and complex adaptive systems, as well as
theoretical causality. These issues will be addressed below, and more fully in a subsequent
Operational Research Division publication.
Thirdly, EBO may be considered a process for obtaining a desired outcome or effect
from an adversary, friend or neutral through the synergistic and cumulative application
of military and non-military capabilities at the tactical, operational and strategic levels.11
Other definitions of EBO portray them as operations conceived, planned and executed
within a systems framework that considers the full range of direct, indirect and additional
cascading effects that may be achieved by the application of political, military, diplomatic
or psychological instruments.12 It is worth underscoring that EBO involves a broad range
of activities, of which military action is only a subset. For example, if a nation or coalition
has, as one of its strategic objectives, the establishment of a democratic regime in a formerly
violent totalitarian region, there may be infinite (or permutated) operational level actions and
resources needed to achieve the desired effects. From this it follows that EBO may be defined
as the combined direct and indirect administration of any means at the nation’s disposal
applied in a synergistic manner in order to elicit a desired strategic outcome. Therefore, it
is imperative that planners think rigorously about the orchestration of effects and proposed
actions and resources needed to achieve them, that is, what is needed to achieve the above
effect – diplomacy, military action, financial incentives, or some combination of them?
In summary, EBO is a coordinated set of actions (or inactions) directed at shaping

the behaviour of foes, friends and neutrals during times of peace, crisis and war. They rely
primarily on the exploitation of cognitive and kinetic weaknesses rather than simply massing
traditional power against traditional power. This approach to the achievement of a long-
term strategic aim requires planners to develop a better appreciation of increasingly complex
67
Chapter 3
human networks. Planners also require a significantly more sophisticated understanding of

human values and mindsets over time and space as well as a multidimensional analysis of the
primary and secondary “nodes,” or “targets” to be affected during the course of EBO.13 A
“node” may be any selected person, place, thing, or social construct, identified by a planning
team. It may include, for example, a national or party leader, a military base, a non-
governmental organization, a power grid, a bank, a religious movement, an international
fund, a population indicator.
Finally, the EBO concept demands from decision makers a recognition that
sophisticated technological tool-suites will enable an efficient effects-based planning (EBP)
process. The complexity associated with the EBP process requires, by nature, a technological
tool-suite capable of affording the decision maker the opportunity to compile, evaluate,
assess, and analyze relevant strategic, operational and tactical data in real-time. This is a
task of incredibly high order that, conceptually, integrates specific, time-sensitive knowledge
about an area of operations with data associated with proposed courses of action susceptible
to an evolving strategic objective.
From the discussion above, it is clear that EBO is a concept still in its infancy. It has
not yet advanced to a mature experimentation phase, nor has it been developed adequately
enough to consider immediate implementation. Making EBO a reality will require the
maturation of the appropriate theoretical and analytical frameworks, both of which consider
a holistic spectrum of conflict that includes political, military, economic, social, legal and
ethical, and infrastructure and information segments. This framework (or frameworks) and
associated methodologies will enable decision makers to plan for activities and operations
more effectively and then adapt plans as situations evolve. Future operations that reflect
the principles of EBO will, by their very nature, require political and military leadership to
both anticipate and understand the consequences of actions. Decision makers will require
a framework that integrates concepts such as the explicit linking of actions to resources
and actions to effects. Decision makers will also require a framework that relates actions
to national strategy, the continuing assessment of operational outcomes and intended and
unintended consequences, the coordination and optimization of interagency efforts and
the effective use of enabling operational concepts such as network-enabled capabilities and
operational net assessment.
It should be noted that while the EBO concept requires further refinement, there
are a number of multinational and Canadian initiatives in place that are investigating the
“sub-concepts” involved in the effects-based approach. Canada has been involved in the
conceptual development, analysis, technological development, experiment design, and
participatory phases of Limited Objective Experiment II (LOE II) and Multinational
Experiment III (MNE III). The former experiment was conducted in February 2002 and
addressed multinational information sharing in “real-time” over a secure collaborative
information environment (CIE) and the development of a multinational ONA database. The
latter, which took place in February 2004, explored the technological, organizational and
process requirements for multinational effects-based planning and coalition development of
a robust ONA database. At the time of the writing of the report on which this chapter is
68
based, MNE 4 was scheduled for the summer of 2005 and was planned to be an experiment
on the conduct of an EBO. Such experimentation is highly desirable and produces a great
deal of qualitative and quantitative data for analysis on the preparatory stages of EBO.
Operational Net Assessment

A critical sub-concept, or tool, in the EBP process is the operational net assessment.
ONA is a continuously updated analysis of adversary, allied, or neutral capabilities based on
a limited number of courses of action (COA) that a state or coalition may take. Underlying
ONA is both a process and a database that includes an assessment of all national or coalition
assets and that incorporates the analytical expertise of the strategic and operational context
that shapes it.14 A functional ONA reflects a constantly refreshed national (or international)
analysis of political, military, economic, social, infrastructure and informational systems
relating to a proposed COA. The systems, and their interaction, are an integral component
to understanding how to plan and execute EBO (see Figure 3-2). This process is ideally
developed through collaborative intelligence and information sharing arrangements among
academia, government and treasury intelligence services, non-governmental organizations
(NGOs), international organizations (IOs), corporations, and defence establishments, as well
as the use of technology that accommodates geographical dispersion.
Social and Cultural

Vulnerabilities Dependencies
National Intel
Agencies
Political Economic Physical
Academia Multi-National
Strengths
Services Corporations
Legal, Ethical Scientific
and Moral and Technical
Commerce/ Weaknesses Relationships
Treasury Military
Figure 3-2. Inputs Required for the ONA Process
The nature of the strategic environment means that the effects-based approach
must adopt a global posture. This posture necessitates ready access to an ONA that
contains information gathered from national, international and coalition sources. National
information may be derived from a broad range of classified and unclassified sources
and requires a strong interagency collaborative process for successful application. This
requirement is sometimes encumbered by traditional bureaucratic structures, however. For
example, in Canada, there are a number of departments and agencies that develop security
and development policy, including, but not limited to, the Privy Council Office (PCO), the
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), the Solicitor General, the
69
Chapter 3
Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Health Canada, Transport Canada, and the Department of
National Defence (DND).15 While each of these departments may share a unified strategic
aim, there may be varied interpretations of how best to achieve that aim.
In order to conduct EBO amongst national agencies, there is a requirement for

strong interagency cooperation and coordination. Arguably, at present, this requirement
is at best superficially implied, or at worst, simply ignored. The reasons for this situation
are far too diverse for this essay to discuss; suffice it to say, there is a challenge ahead for
the Canadian government and its agencies and departments. For example, should a severe
humanitarian crisis develop abroad, one to which the Canadian government pledged
assistance, it is generally understood that there would be a certain level of cooperation and
coordination among a number of associated agencies and departments, including the DND
and DFAIT. It is also understood that decision making would indeed take place in some
collaborative fashion. However, currently such decision making and collaboration is, for
the most part, ad hoc and would therefore fail to provide an adequate assessment of the
cascading effects of potential actions and capabilities when decisions are made. Moreover,
although decisions would be made collaboratively, at least in spirit, it is unlikely that such
decisions would be made based on the most holistic set of information available, nor would
they be made in sufficient time. This is a challenge to overcome and one exponentially more
complicated in the dynamics of a coalition environment.
The effects-based planning process envisages interagency coordination and assistance

in developing the ONA, creating potential “effects” and actions linkages, and pursuing
actions based on capabilities. The United States has explored the Standing Joint Forces
Headquarters (SJFHQ) concept and it is now in its prototype phase. The SJFHQ concept
has, at its core, a combat commander with the capability to “reach-back” to knowledge and
planning-specific boards, centres and cells, and more importantly, to a Joint Interagency
Coordination Group (JIACG). This is an innovative approach to decision making, one
which places an appropriate emphasis on the role of other government departments in
the EBP process. However, alternative concepts of C2 give even greater emphasis to the
interagency role in decision making. Research has been initiated in Canada that will explore
the National Interagency C2 Group concept and its position relative to ONA and EBO.
Once a unified strategic aim has been developed and a net assessment of desired
end-states and the means to achieve them has been agreed upon, a representation of the
real world is generated that allows the “battlespace” to be considered as a complex adaptive
system (CAS). From this understanding, the planning process can be properly configured
to ensure that the right information gets to the right people at the right time. EBO seeks to
assure decision superiority by improving one’s (or one’s allies’) information posture, whilst
manipulating another actor’s position in order to exploit every opportunity to increase the
speed and accuracy of operations.16 Decision making will involve an assessment of the
multitude of possible (and probable) outcomes or goals which “include the assurance of
“beyond first-order” effects on the agents, institutions, technologies, and motivations that
constitute an adversary’s infrastructure, as well as on the global state of the socio-physical
systems that comprise the adversary and international system.”17
70
In summary, ONA promises to provide an understanding of the nature, structure,

and vulnerabilities of key critical nodes or targets in a “system of systems.” To provide this
understanding, ONA must be continually updated to support an ongoing planning process
for each selected contingency. ONA’s utility extends from peacetime interaction with
potential adversaries through to the conduct of rapid decisive military operations. Given
the level of understanding provided by the ONA, EBO planners, assisted by sophisticated
decision support tools, can identify appropriate response mechanisms, the body and sequence
of means to upset the adversary’s coherency, and then coerce him to take actions that are
favourable to national and coalition interests. The objective is to provide the decision makers
with a current analysis of the adversary’s capabilities and vulnerabilities (or “nodes”), as well
as an array of effects-based options that can be applied to adversary courses of action as they
are identified.
Complex Systems and EBO

The most direct implications of EBO in the future are likely to lie in the areas of
command and control. That said, the effects-based approach relies on a firm understanding
of complexity theory, causality, networking and complex adaptive systems theory. EBO and
complexity theory both deal with how a widely distributed collection of diverse autonomous
agents acting individually can nonetheless behave like a single, even directed, entity.18
Alternatively, traditional (Newtonian) science has always provided metaphors and models
for isolated military concepts and, even more fundamentally, it has provided the general
paradigm that has classified Western culture. This paradigm shapes both our interpretation
of the problems we face and the solutions we generate to those problems. It is mechanistic,
measurable, and reliable.19
The traditional Western way of warfare has been as heavily informed by Newtonian
principles. If one accepts this interpretation, it would follow that, like other events, warfare
is deterministically predictable. Given knowledge of the initial conditions and having
identified the universal laws of combat, one should be able to resolve specific political and
military issues and predict the results. Indeed, for argument’s sake, all Newtonian systems
can eventually be distilled to one concept: linear cause and effect. In fact, such efforts to
quantify cause and effect in war have been numerous, with some recent methodologies
including those used in the Correlates of War Project.20 This approach accepts that war is
altogether “knowable” and that which we cannot directly understand, we should be able to
extrapolate scientifically. Unfortunately, this paradigm is limited when applied to EBO and
the complex nature of future conflict.
The marriage of complexity theory to international security studies should come

as no surprise, because since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks,21 there has been
increasing focus on non-linear theories as ways to help us understand, and mitigate,
unpredictable and complex adaptive systems such as terrorism.22 Complexity theory, then,
can be viewed as an innate form for investigating the properties and behaviour of the
dynamics of non-linear systems, such as warfare.23 This stands in contrast to traditional
methods within the theoretical domain designed to analyze the relatively non-linear world,
such as statistics.
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Chapter 3
Complexity has been defined as:
The set of deterministic theories that do not necessarily lead to long-term

prediction… The numerical variables are still uniquely related to each other
locally in space and time. But… we cannot obtain the future values implied
by the theory just as a result of compact, well-defined manipulation of the
present values.24
Complexity can appear even in apparently simplistic or deterministic causal

situations, such as those in the natural world.25 The mathematician Henri Poincaré showed
that the motion of three celestial bodies, although governed by scientific laws, defied exact
solution: while eclipses of the moon could be predicted thousands of years in advance, they
could not be predicted millions of years in advance—a very short period in astronomical
terms.26
As we know, linear systems portray an arrangement of nature (with all of its warts
and foibles) where outputs are proportional to inputs, where the whole is equal to the sum of
its parts, and where cause and effect are directly (or indirectly, through inductive reasoning)
observable. According to David Alberts, linear systems exist in a scientific environment
where prediction is facilitated by planning, success is pursued by detailed monitoring, and a
“premium is placed upon reductionism, rewarding those who excel in reductionist processes,”
in which large swaths of data are reduced to manageable morsels.27 By contrast, non-linear
systems consider the arrangement of nature, with all of its complications (including warfare),
as an environment where inputs and outputs are not proportional; where the whole is not
quantitatively equal to its parts, and where cause and effect are not immediately visible.28 It
is the world of EBO—where phenomena are not visibly predictable, but are self-organizing;
where unpredictability defeats conventional methods, and where self-organization defeats
traditional control.29
It is clear that social interactions within political environments constitute systems

and that the many outcomes within those systems are the consequences of complex
interactions. In EBO, we are dealing with a system (or system of systems) where 1) a set of
elements are inter-connected so that shifts in the system produce changes in other parts of
the system; and 2) the entire system exhibits properties and behaviours that are related to but
different from the sum of the parts.
The result of this situation is that the systems within EBO display non-linear (and
causal) relationships that cannot be understood by adding together the units or their relation.
Indeed, many of the results of actions are unpredictable, unintended or unwanted.30 Actions
produce effects, but these effects may be neither the intended results of the action, nor what
was wanted to achieve the overall objective.
International relations are full of inter-connections and complex interactions.

Ripples move through channels established by interests and strategies.31 Therefore, when
these interactions are elaborate, or multidimensional, the ramifications will be as well.32
Similarly, when planning EBO, one must consider, and mitigate, the wide array of potential,
possible, and probable effects and cascading effects which may result from a single course
72
of action. In a system, the chain of consequences extend over time and space and the
effects of actions are always multiple. Any disturbance of a “node” within the system,
or the disturbance of a system within a system of systems, will produce several effects.
Consequently, and contrary to all the hopes and aspirations of some strategists, one cannot
always find or develop the key agent which will produce the desired effect. For example, one
cannot expect to link with linear methods 100 years of scientific, economic, and cultural
degrees to the events on 11 September 2001. That is, a link from Ernest Rutherford to
Albert Einstein to Robert Oppenheimer to Harry Truman to Joseph Stalin to Winston
Churchill to Jawaharlal Nehru to Mohammad Ali Jinnah to Prince Mohammed Daoud to
the Mujahideen to the Taliban to Osama bin Laden, although arguably causally sufficient is
not causally logical in a non-linear system. Because of the prevalence of inter-connections,
we cannot understand systems by simply summing-up the characteristics of the parts.33
More precisely, actions interact to produce effects that cannot be readily comprehended by
linear models.34 While we may intuitively expect linear relationships, this is not possible,
particularly in warfare.35 Moreover, the effect of one series of characteristics can depend
heavily on what other characteristics are within the environment.36 Even if one were to hold
true Michael Doyle’s thesis that democracies do not fight each other in a world where other
regimes exist, it would not hold true that an entirely democratic world would be a peaceful
one.37
Figure 3-3. Complexity and Cause and Effect
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Chapter 3
EBO are not linear; nor is the ONA process that feeds them. EBO are conducted in
an open, collaboratively distributed, non-linear system that is sensitive to initial conditions
and characterized by complex, continuous feedback. Thus, EBO are a process rather than an
event. The environment in which EBO operate, the “system of systems,” is an open system
- continuously exchanging energy and information with other systems and with the strategic
environment at large. EBO are in a continuous state of flux—they operate within the perpetual
cycle of crisis, conflict and post-conflict resolution. Planners and decision makers must,
therefore, be cognizant of interactions and linkages between nodes, or targets, within and
between systems, as illustrated in Figure 3-3.
Complexity theory and causality theory, then, provides a fundamental theoretical

background to the nature of conflict generally and EBO specifically. The challenge is to apply
this understanding to the operational planning levels.
EBO In A Virtual Environment

If we are to treat war as a non-linear system, two premises emerge. First, war as we
traditionally understand it, is uncertain; and second, war as we traditionally understand it, is
uncontrollable, given our linear understanding of command and control.
Uncertainty is a natural and unavoidable product of a dynamic endeavour such as war,

and complex systems cannot be manipulated to suit our current understanding of the so-called
“battlespace.” On the other hand, decision makers can adapt to complex systems and produce
technology enablers to help mitigate uncertainty. Thus, if EBO are uncertain and uncontrollable,
one might consider technological enablers as a means of achieving at least relative certainty and
relative control. In the end, it is not a question of whether we will ever have the technology to
gather enough information to understand the complexities involved in EBO, but once we have
the capability, how can we use it to best shape events?38
The quest to remove uncertainty from strategic and operational planning has always
dominated warfare. Indeed, recent US and coalition political/military experiments have been
specifically designed to help mitigate uncertainty.39 US-led experiments on collaborative
information environments, dominant effects, network-enabled capabilities, and rapid decisive
operations (RDO), have all placed an emphasis on technological enablers to help achieve
certainty.40 This reliance on technology to mitigate uncertainty reflects the reality of a
technologically advanced US military unsure of its future role in global affairs,41 not to mention a
very conscious defence decision to continue the transformation that was initiated under Secretary
of Defence Donald Rumsfeld.42 As mentioned above, the MNE III experiment is designed to
test the processes, organizations and technologies required to conduct effects-based planning.
Once the experiment is concluded and analysis completed, recommendations will be forwarded
to DND through the Operational Research Division.
According to some military theorists, “to date, most warfare has taken place within
what Robert J. Bunker terms the ‘human space,’ meaning the traditional four-dimensional
battlespace that is discernible to the human senses.”43 In this interpretation, warfare has been
conducted with human beings doing their best to hit other human beings with projectiles who
74
are, in turn, doing their best to hit other human beings with projectiles. Advances are being
made, however, that propose placing humans on the periphery of battle, as ever more capable
machines take the place of humans in the battlespace.44 These progressions include, most
notably, computer-driven information gathering and synthesis systems, and the proliferation
of autonomous tactical weapons systems (i.e., robotic systems). More and more elements of
warfare are evolving beyond the realm of the human senses, and, more importantly, crossing
outside the limits of human reaction and assessment times.45 Logically, then, military
systems, once integrated into the conduct of war, will eventually be “too fast, too small, too
numerous, and will create an environment too complex for humans to direct.”46
This process of replacing humans on the battlefield is deliberate, is well within the
mandate of the two most recent US Quadrennial Defense Reviews, and is being explored by
most Western armed forces, despite post-Cold War Western defence expense reductions.47
In this process, knowledge is seen as the key to the successful achievement of an objective,
speed and accuracy are seen as the keys to exploiting that knowledge, and computer-assisted
decision making tools are an inevitable evolution of this process. Consequently, many
envisage a steadily altered role for humans in decision making and operations as this century
progresses.48
A fundamental development underlying the evolution (or devolution) of human

control is that of automated information and networking systems. A recent US Army
Training and Doctrine Command paper has claimed that:
Advances in computer architecture and machine intelligence will have

reached the point where intelligent agents can analyze the environment and
current battle situation, search likely target areas, detect and analyze targets,
assist in attack decisions, select and dispense munitions, and report results.49
Indeed, the difference between a machine that can do all of these things and
actually make key decisions may only be a matter of programming. The citation above is a
description of computers that can function autonomously to conduct asymmetric warfare
at the tactical level. If anything, the description is an understatement. This author suggests
that within our lifetimes, computers may be capable of planning, tasking, and assessing
events at the operational level. During MNE III, the coalition planners for the EBP
process will test a number of different software packages during each of the planning steps.
Canada, in particular, has taken the lead for both the conceptual development and design
of a technological tool that would enable planners to synchronize desired operational effects
across time and space. This tool, to be tested in MNE III and subsequently analyzed by the
Operational Research Division, is expected to adapt proposed effects to actions, to available
capabilities in order to provide planners with a visualization of what the “best” course of
action would be based on probabilities of success, resource constraints, action usage and
required predecessors, as illustrated in Figure 3-4. Subject to experimentation and analysis,
this tool may be worthy of further development for DND and other government department
(OGD) crisis management and EBO.
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Chapter 3
There have been several recent defence science investigations into the marriage of
technology to complex thinking and complex adaptive systems such as EBO. The Technical
Cooperation Program (TTCP) JSA AG10 “Technologies for Effects-Based Operations,” in
which Canada has participated, focussed on modelling and analysis concepts and tools and
techniques that would bring both analytical rigour and assistance to decision making in the
complex environment of EBO.50 Included in this exploration were physical models (such as
the Canadian GEOPOL model, a global geopolitical database), in which physical networks
are characterized by nodes and links with sources and sinks, plus material stocks and flows.
Virtual network models, (including the Australian Analytica Model and the Danish Hugin
model), in which networks of relationships can be listed hierarchically and assigned relative
value, or which may bring an ability to build interactive causal networks for strategic
indicators and warnings that aid operational planning were also explored. The US Situational
Influence Assessments Module (SIAM) software application purports to streamline complex
decision making by facilitating the construction and analysis of an influence net model. The
net model depicts events and their causal relationships.
December January February March

ID Task Name
12/7 12/14 12/21 12/28 1/4 1/11 1/18 1/25 2/1 2/8 2/15 2/22 2/29 3/7 3/14 3/21 3/28
1 OBJ_Provide Secure Environment for Economic Regeneration OBJ_Provide Secure Environment for Economic Regeneration
2 E001 - Restore Iraqi Oil Production E001 - Restore Iraqi Oil

3/25
3 A001 - Military - Seize and Secure Oil Fields R001 - ISR Assets
4 A001 - Military - Seize and Secure Oil Fields R002 - Special Forces
5 A001 - Military - Seize and Secure Oil Fields R003 - Ground Forces
6 A002 - Military - Repair Pipelines R004 - Eng Teams
7 A003 - Military - Cap Wells R004 - Eng Teams
8 A004 - Military Rebuild Infrastructure R004 - Eng Teams
9 A101 - Diplomatic - Negotiate ownership of northern oilfield R005 - UN
10 A201 - Economic - Influence global markets R006 - OP

OBJ_2
11 OBJ_2
E002 - Preserve Iraqi Infrastructure

12 E002 - Preserve Iraqi Infrastructure
2/23
13 A001 - Military - Seize and Secure Oil Fields R001 - ISR Assets
14 A001 - Military - Seize and Secure Oil Fields R002 - Special Forces
15 A001 - Military - Seize and Secure Oil Fields R003 - Ground Forces
16 A005 - Military - X R002 - Special Forces
17 A102 - Diplomatic - Y R005 - UN
Figure 3-4. Effect Synchronization Example
Effects can be synchronized over time and space based on resource constraints,
predecessors, action doubling and usage.
While these future uses of technology may seem far-fetched, we should recognize
that current computer technology has not yet begun to approach its theoretical limits. In
1998 (a long time ago in computer terms), scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory
announced that they had been able to consistently manipulate subatomic particles, thus
opening the way for computation systems an order of magnitude smaller and faster than
76
anything in existence.51 In 1999, researchers at UCLA began work on a molecular computer

with a processing power of 100 personal computers. In October 2001, the American
company ASI revealed the development of its KARNAC suite, a software package that uses
human “profiling” and data-mining techniques to sift through seemingly unrelated pieces
of information in order to pre-empt terrorist attacks before they happen.52 More recently,
Professor Wilpen Gorr and researchers at Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz School have created a
computer program that forecasts “criminal” activity before it occurs. Gorr’s programme
is based on a sophisticated trend analysis of criminal activity combined with an ability to
predict with some degree of accuracy future criminal activity.53 The implications of such
advances are almost unimaginable: inexpensive, ubiquitous supercomputing in minute
machines so advanced that they can gather, assess, and analyze thousands of strands of
complex information. This is not to suggest that there will ever be a conscious decision
to remove humans from battlefield decision making; rather, in the future, soldiers might
retain less control, whilst gradually leaning towards advanced systems when logic dictates
that human control become less pronounced.54 The implications of this technology for
complex processes such as effects-based planning are equally fantastic, and raise the question
of how one can effectively and efficiently plan for tasks in order to achieve a stated strategic
objective?
As technology advances, one might expect the clarity of EBO computer models
to improve exponentially. Of course, linear algorithms may never be able to replicate the
non-linear and often unquantifiable logic of war. Indeed, the history of human conflict is
littered with examples of how armed forces achieved results that no algorithm would have
predicted.55 EBO, however, might be executed completely outside of the human sphere
of activity. For example, the concept of “net-war” assumes that conflict will eventually
be waged virtually within and amongst computer systems attacking the full spectrum of
opposing military and civilian information systems. By its very nature, then, the speed and
accuracy of EBO may be limited only to the speed of the electronic circuit boards in which
it develops. EBO is complex and adaptive, with operational moves often too pervasive for
human intervention. In the end, both offence and defence might be completely automated,
simply because humans will be far too slow and linear to participate. As a caveat, one might
also assume that the panacea of technology may not appear as sufficient as one might expect.
Indeed, there are several mathematical, engineering, technological, and temporal/spatial,
not to mention ethical, issues that require attention before such an advance be considered
an appropriate enabler of EBO. Nonetheless, one suspects that the future of EBO requires
further investigation of the potential of technology.
Conclusion
This essay has been deliberately suggestive because future conflict is uncertain and
complex and Canada must understand it. The essay has introduced the concept of EBO and
argued that its planning and execution rely on an understanding of the complex nature of
conflict and on theories of complex adaptive systems and causality. An acceptance of EBO
demands a shift in mind-set, as well as the application of sophisticated technologies to the
overall planning, decision making, execution, and assessment phases of an operation. The
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Chapter 3
effective management and manipulation of large quantities of evolving data is essential in

order to achieve and maintain shared situational awareness both within and outside of an
area of operations (or system of systems) and to gain an understanding of what effects may,
or may not be, achieved with the available resources. If EBO are to function efficiently and
with the appropriate level of accuracy and speed required in the future security environment,
then there is a need for alternative methods to assist leaders and planners in recognizing
where, and why, uncertainty exists.56 Traditional linear methods of warfare are no longer
suitable; neither are the traditional means of operational planning, decision making and
command and control.
This study is the first in a series of monographs on the effects-based approach. It

has introduced EBO as a concept that relies heavily on the injection of specific interagency,
academic, corporate, diplomatic, economic and coalition intelligence knowledge for the
formulation of an operational net assessment, as well as a recognition of the technological
means needed to assist the decision maker in ascertaining the complexity of desired tactical
end-states, or “effects,” required for the attainment of a strategic objective. It has suggested
that Canada pursue the exploration of this concept.
The advantages that the EBA may offer rely heavily on a shift in the psychological
mindset of the decision maker, as well as a suitable application of technology to the overall
planning, decision making, and analysis phases of an operation, be it humanitarian,
developmental, defence or a combination thereof. If EBO are to function efficiently and
with the appropriate level of accuracy and speed, there is a requirement for governments
and armed forces to adopt alternative thought processes to assist operational planners in
recognizing where challenges and uncertainty may exist. In Canada, this may require a series
of shifts that include:
1. greater interagency cooperation and coordination of planning and operations;
2. greater inclusion of academia, IOs and NGOs, and private industry in planning
for crises, mitigating threats, planning for “effects,” and developing a robust
ONA;
3. further exploration, both nationally and with international partners, of the com-
plex nature of warfare generally and EBO specifically;
4. further exploration of the requirements needed to operationalize EBO; and
5. a cross-government appreciation of the advantages of adopting an EBA as a

major operating concept of the future.
Taking the above shifts into account, the following recommendations should be
considered:
1. continued Canadian involvement in the development of the EBO concept

within a multinational environment, that is, specifically in terms of conceptual
78
refinement, what can Canada provide the international community, or what can
the international community provide Canada?
2. continued Canadian involvement in the development of analytical tools and

techniques that assist in the refinement, collation and visualization of complex
systems;
3. an investigation into a suitable organizational framework for a Canadian head-

quarters structure and effects-based interagency C2 structure;
4. an exploration into the relative merits of Canada adopting the EBA. Is it fea-
sible? Does it merit substantial organizational, functional, operational re-evalua-
tion of the CF? Does it merit financial allocation?
5. an assessment of the EBA and its inclusion into a major Canadian defence paper
or strategic concept.
Notes
1. This chapter originally appeared as a Department of National Defence, Operational Research
Division, Directorate of Operational Research (Joint) Research Note RN 2004/01 published in January 2004.
2. “The Economist Global Agenda,” Economist (2 July 2003), 1. Available at www.economist.com.
Accessed 2 July 2003.
3. Ibid.
4. Edward Luttwak, “Digging out from disaster,” The Globe and Mail (21 August 2003), p. A17.
5. Madeline K. Albright, “Bridges, Bombs, or Bluster?” Foreign Affairs 82, no. 5 (Sep-Oct 2003), 2-20.
6. The “traditional” method of warfare and its pursuit in Iraq has been analyzed further in several
newspaper editorials. See for example “Comment and Analysis,” Financial Times (30 June 2003), 13; R.W. Apple,
“A New Way of Warfare Leaves Behind an Abundance of Loose Ends,” New York Times (20 April 2003), pp. B1,
B14; BBC News, “US Plans for Iraq ‘Flawed,’” (26 June 2003). Available at www.bbc.co.uk. Accessed 26 June
2003; Jim Hoagland, “The War Isn’t Over,” Washington Post (22 May 2003), p. A35; and Thomas E. Ricks, “U.S.
Alters Tactics in Baghdad Occupation,” Washington Post (25 May 2003), pp. A1, A18.
7. Roger Lewin, Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos (New York, Macmillan, 1992).
8. Desmond Saunders-Newton and Aaron B. Frank, “Effects-Based Operations: Building the
Analytical Tools,” Defense Horizons no. 19, Center for Technology and National Security Policy, National Defense
University (October 2002).
9. The threat of asymmetric retaliation and guerrilla warfare (slowly) persuaded Coalition forces to
re-assess strategic options in Iraq in the spring of 2003. See, Edmund L. Andrews and Patrick E. Tyler, “As Iraqis’
Disaffection Grows, U.S. Offers Them a Greater Political Role,” New York Times (7 June 2003), p. A8.
10. Saunders-Newton and Frank, “Effects-Based Operations,” 1.
11. This definition is derived from a recent multinational experiment definition. For example, see
US J9 Experimentation, US Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM), working definition, 2002. See also draft of
Effects-Based Planning concept for Multinational Experiment 3, a joint concept between the UK Joint Doctrine
and Concepts Centre (JDCC), the Canadian Forces Experimentation Centre (CFEC), the German Bundeswehr,
France, NATO ACT, Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), (August 2003).
79
Chapter 3
12. Paul K. Davis, Effects-Based Operations: A Grand Challenge for the Analytical Community (Santa
Monica, CA: RAND, 2001), RAND MR-1477-USJFCOM/AF, 2001.
13. R. David Smith, “The Inapplicability of Principle: What Chaos Means for Social Science,”
Behavioral Science 40, (1995), 22; Steven Guastello, Chaos, Catastrophe, and Human Affairs: Application of
Nonlinear Dynamics to Work, Organizations, and Social Evolution (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
1995).
14. Keith P. Curtis, Multinational Information Sharing and Collaborative Planning Limited Objective
Experiments, MITRE Corporation, 2001, p. 3.
15. See Conference of Defence Association Institute, A Nation at Risk (Ottawa, ON: 2002).
16. Decision superiority is the application of knowledge by leaders to make the highest quality
decisions directing assigned resources such that they maintain operational flexibility and agility. With its roots in
the OODA loop, this concept includes psychological determinants such as will, capability and intent.
17. Saunders-Newton and Frank, “Effects-Based Operations,” p. 3.
18. Paul Davis and Brian Michael Jenkins, “The Influence Component of Counterterrorism: A
Systems Approach,” RAND Review (Spring 2003). Available at www.rand.org. Accessed 7 May 2003.
19. For example, see arguments presented in Murray Gell-Mann, The Quark and the Jaguar (London:
Abacus, 1994), 84-5. Note that Gell-Mann also considers the rarity of revolutionary scientific paradigm shifts (as
defined and extrapolated by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions).
20. J. David Singer and Paul F. Diehl, eds., Measuring the Correlates of War (Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press, 1990).
21. United States, Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report (30 September 2001), 14.
22. Ironically, it is rather late to arrive when compared to its use in fields such as economics,
management, ecology, biology and physics. See for example, Dana Mackenzie, “The Science of Surprise: Can
complexity theory help us understand the real consequences of a convoluted event like September 11?” Discover
(February 2002). Available at www.discover.com/feb_02/featsurprise.htm. Accessed 8 July 2003.
23. Douglas Van Belle, “Unexpected Innovation: Lessons from Simulating Complex Anarchical
Environments over the Internet,” International Studies Notes 22, no. 2 (Spring 1997), 18.
24. Alvin Saperstein, “Chaos: A Model for the Outbreak of War,” Nature 309 (24 May 1984), 303-5.
25. Robert Jervis, “Complex Systems: The Role of Interactions,” in David Alberts, ed., Complexity,
Global Politics and National Security (Washington, DC: CCRP/Institute for National Strategic Studies, 1997), 46.
26. Ibid.
27. David Alberts, Complexity, Global Politics and National Security (Washington, DC: CCRP/
Institute for National Strategic Studies, 1997), xiii.
28. M. Mitchell Waldrop, Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1992).
29. This argument has evolved, in part, from a University of Maryland project on complex adaptive
systems. See, Kiersten Blair Johnson, “The Development of Progressive and Sustainable Human Complex
Adaptive Systems: Institutions, Organizations and Communities,” 1999. Available at www.wam.umd.edu/
~nafikiri/webcomplex.htm. Accessed 17 June 2003.
30. Robert Pool, “Chaos Theory: How Big an Advance?” Science 245 (9 July 1989).
31. Note a study on modelling civil violence in Joshua M. Epstein, John D. Steinbrunner, Miles T.
Parker, “Modeling Civil Violence: An Agent-Based Computational Approach,” Center on Social and Economic
Dynamics, Working Paper, no. 20 (January 2001).
80
32. See also, Garrett Hardin, “The Cybernetics of Competition,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
7 (Autumn 1963), 80.
33. Allan Beycheren, “Nonlinear Science and the Unfolding of a New Intellectual Vision,” in
Richard Bjornson and Marilyn Waldman, eds., Papers in Comparative Studies Vol. 6. (Columbus, OH: Center for
Comparative Studies in the Humanities, Ohio State University Press, 1989).
34. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wessely, 1979); and
Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents (New York: Basic Books, 1984.
35. Roger Beaumont, War, Chaos, and History (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994).
36. These may be linkages but not necessarily logically causal ones.
37. Michael Doyle, “Michael Doyle on the Democratic Peace,” International Security 19 (1995), 180-
4. See also Robert Jervis, “Complex Systems,” 52.
38. Jeffrey Cooper, “Diplomacy in the Information Age: Implications for Content and Conduct,”
iMP Magazine (July 2001). Available at www.cisp.org/imp/july_2001/07_02cooper.htm. Accessed 17 June 2003.
39. Recent exercises have included USJFCOM-sponsored multinational experiments such as Limited
Objective Experiment 2 and the forthcoming Multinational Experiment 3.
40. William M. Arkin, “A New Mindset for Warfare,” Washington Post (22 September 2001), 3.
Available at www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/. Accessed 17 June 2003.
41. David C. Gompert and Irving Lachow, “Transforming US Forces: Lessons from the wider
revolution,” Issue Paper, RAND/National Defense Research Institute (2002). Available at www.randf.org/
publications/IP/IP193/. Accessed 22 October 2002.
42. United States, Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, 30 September 2001.
43. Thomas K. Adams, “Future Warfare and the Decline of Human Decisionmaking,” Parameters 31,
no. 4 (Winter 2001-02), 57-71. See also Robert J. Bunker, Five-Dimensional (Cyber) Warfighting (Carlisle, PA: US
Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 10 March 1998), 7-8.
44. There are numerous sources on this topic. Some of the more applicable to this article include,
Dan Hunter and F. Gregory Lastowka, “To Kill an Avatar,” Legal Affairs (May/June 2003). Available at www.
legalaffairs.org/issues/July-August-2003/feature_hunter_julaug03.html. Accessed 3 July 2003; and Matthew
Brzezinski, “Autopilot: Can the Next War be Fought with no Soldiers at All?” New York Times Magazine (20 April
2003), 38-40, 80.
45. Thomas K. Adams, “Future Warfare and the Decline of Human Decisionmaking,” 58.
46. Ibid. Examples include the emergence of directed-energy weapons (DEWs) with capacities for
engagement at the speed of light, developments in nano-, bio-, and quantum-technology, “digital army” initiatives
such as the Land Warrior system, semi- and fully autonomous robotic systems, the first operational light-speed
weapon, the US Air Force’s Yal-la Attack Laser, microwave systems, and tiny Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems
(MEMS).
47. Kip N. Nygren, “Emerging Technologies and Exponential Change,” Parameters 32, no. 2
(Summer 2002), 86-99.
48. This is a major philosophical issue unable to be explored further in this article. See Michael
Ignatieff’s excellent study on this topic, Virtual War (London: Vintage, 2000); John Leech, Asymmetries of Conflict
(London: Frank Cass, 2002); Batya Friedman and Lynette Millett, “‘It’s the computer’s fault’: Reasoning about
computers as moral agents,” Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Colby College, 1995. Available
at www.acm.org/sigchi/chi95/Electronic/documnts/shortppr/bf2_bdy.htm. Accessed 17 June 2003.
49. US Army Training and Doctrine Command, “Concept of Employment for Unmanned Systems
(Draft),” 24 August 1999, 4.
81
Chapter 3
50. DRAFT Final Report of TTCP JSA AG10 “Technologies for Effects Based Operations,”
Unclassified, December 2003.
51. “Breakthrough Made in Subatomic Manipulation,” Scripps-Howard Newspapers, 8 November
1998. Available at www.nandotimes.com. Accessed 17 June 2003.
52. Duncan Graham-Rowe, “Intelligence Analysis Software Could Predict Attacks,” New Scientist.
com (2 October 2001). Available at www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp. Accessed 17 June 2003. See also the
ASI Website at www.asinc.com for information on their PreAct® Libraries.
53. Wilpen Gorr, “Cloudy, with a chance of theft,” Wired (September 2003), 79-80.
54. One should also note the development of computerized knowledge assessment (CKA), or brain
fingerprinting, which analyzes brainwaves to predict terrorist attack. See Steve Kirsh, “Identifying terrorists
before they strike by using computerized knowledge assessment (CKA),” www.skirsh.com (7 October 2001).
Accessed 17 June 2003.
55. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., “Technology : Recomplicating Moral Life for the Nation’s Defenders,”
Parameters 29, no. 3 (Autumn 1999), 24-53.
56. Roger Lewin, Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos (New York: Macmillan, 1992).
82
Part III - Canadian Perspectives
from the EBO Workshop
Summary of Conclusions from the Effects-Based Operations Workshop
Chapter 4
Summary of Conclusions From the Effects-Based
Operations Workshop
Howard Coombs and Allan English
General
This section reflects a summary of conclusions from a Canadian Forces Aerospace
Warfare Centre (CFAWC) / Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC)
Workshop on Effects-Based Operations (EBO) that took place 27-28 November 2006 in
the NAV Canada Training and Conference Centre at Cornwall, Ontario. The workshop
proceedings will be available in a separate DRDC report.
The aim of the workshop was to identify issues related to EBO and to begin to
establish the agenda for better understanding EBO in a Canadian context. The workshop
consisted of a series of syndicate seminars and plenary sessions, based on selected readings,
contemporary literature on EBO and personal experiences with EBO. Questions, created by
the workshop organizers, were circulated in advance and were designed to guide discussion;
therefore, not all questions were necessarily answered. This conclusion summarizes
participants’ perspectives so that we can have a clearer picture of what EBO means from a
Canadian perspective.
Conclusions
All participants acknowledged that the idea of achieving certain effects through
military, diplomatic, and other actions is a very old concept that has been evolving for a long
time. There were a number of different ways of conceptualizing the term “effect,” but the idea
that an effect is a change, whether physical, moral or cognitive, that has been caused by an
action or inaction” seemed to be acceptable to most workshop participants. It was noted by
some, that the word “effect” infers that there is no finality to the result of a particular action
and that there is always “more to come.” This idea has implications for the concept of “end
state” in operational art.
Despite its ancient roots, in its current context, the term “effects-based operations”
was derived from the writings of twentieth century air power theorists, and the term EBO
was first used by the US Air Force in the late 1990s. Because of this recent background
and its technological focus, EBO is seen by some as a particularly air force approach to
operations. Given the perceived air force origins of EBO, some at the workshop preferred
to use the term “effects-based approach to operations” (EBAO), because, they argued, EBO
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Chapter 4
had become associated with a prescriptive, technologically-based, largely air force way of
conducting operations, whereas EBAO conveyed the idea of a broader, more philosophical
approach to operations.
Some workshop participants indicated that the term EBO had evolved since the
mid-1990s, as the early twenty-first century military-strategic situation has caused some to
emphasize the sociological as opposed to the technological aspects of EBO. For example,
conflict in the post-Cold War era has shown that tactical victories can be achieved, but that
they do not necessarily result in overall strategic success. Therefore, for some, a more human-
focussed version of EBO is the best way to link tactical actions to strategic goals. Others
acknowledged that EBO was a method that could help to understand the complex situations
that are found in today’s operational environments, but that current planning processes based
on the operational art were flexible enough to incorporate EBO concepts without changing
the processes radically. All workshop participants agreed that EBO was still an immature
concept and had not enough explanatory power to be regarded as a theory.
Some at the workshop argued that Canada does not have the resources to fully
practice EBO, and, therefore could only employ EBO as part of a larger coalition or with
the United States. Nevertheless, most participants felt that Canada needed to both fully
understand EBO as a concept and know how EBO might apply to Canadian operations if it
was to be an effective alliance or coalition partner.
Conceptual Foundations. During the workshop a number of concepts were put

forward as being fundamental to the practice of EBO. Despite the immaturity of EBO as a
concept and the differing views on exactly what constituted EBO, there was some consensus
among workshop participants that EBO should be a top-down, integrated approach that can
be employed to make changes in the security environment to achieve one or more desired
end states related to attaining strategic objectives. It was suggested that if EBO sought to
produce change, whether physical, moral or cognitive, then changes should be observable
and measurable, either by objective or subjective means. To be meaningful, the change being
measured should also be considered in terms of outcomes as opposed to inputs or outputs. In
this regard, an effects-based approach (EBA) encourages the consideration of the use of non-
kinetic means to produce change, but it does not exclude kinetic means.
Another important concept that emerged during the workshop discussions was the
importance, when using the EBO process in a Canadian context, of adopting a “Whole-
of-Government” approach, in which there is greater interaction between the CF and other
government agencies (e.g., the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade). All
present acknowledged that EBO could be used to situate the use of the military instrument
of power in a broader whole-of-government or Diplomatic, Informational, Military and
Economic (DIME) context. In this whole-of-government approach, responsibility and
authority would be delegated to the agency or government department, or perhaps even
a non-governmental organization (NGO), to ensure that the right actor with the right
expertise and capabilities was employed to deliver the desired effect. However, for an EBO
whole-of-government approach to be feasible, clear definitions and terminology would be
86
required. This could be problematic at the moment given the diversity of ways of describing
EBO.
Furthermore, implementing an EBO whole-of-government approach could

be problematic if EBO is perceived to be a military-based concept rooted in military
terminology. Some suggested that an innovative, multi-disciplinary process is needed to
bridge the gap between various government organizations. This new approach would require
a new vocabulary, based on language that could be understood by all involved, as opposed
to the highly technical and culturally-specific DND lexicon that, when used, often inhibits
cooperation across government departments.
Defining EBO. As we have seen, there are many approaches to and definitions of
EBO. Some participants found Edward A. Smith’s definition concise and relevant: “Effects-
based operations are coordinated sets of actions directed at shaping the behaviour of friends,
neutrals, and foes in peace, crisis, and war.”1 EBO in this context included, for them, the
requirement to coordinate efforts among all the instruments of national power, as well as
a requirement to emphasize psychological or cognitive, versus physical, effects across the
spectrum of conflict.
Other participants noted that a US study of EBO emphasized the following points
that were consistent with Smith’s definition:
1. the importance of linking all actions (political, diplomatic, economic, and mili-
tary) to operational and strategic outcomes;
2. the continuous assessment of the effect and adaptation, as needed, of plans and
actions to the reality of conflict;
3. thinking about the implications of actions and operations in terms of their sec-
ond-, third-, and nth-order effects; and
4. thinking about the implications and consequences of effects over time.2
Applying EBO Today. There was a general consensus among the workshop
participants that, in today’s complex security environment, EBO should be applied in
a comprehensive and holistic whole-of-government way. In the context of using EBO
in a whole-of-government approach, some participants suggested examining the British
“Comprehensive Approach (CA),” which refers to a means of coordinating government
efforts to obtain particular outcomes during complex emergencies. In the “Comprehensive
Approach” it is understood that the military may not be the lead agency in many cases and
may have to conduct enabling or supporting operations for other government departments.3
The British “Comprehensive Approach” requires military planners to examine and consider
lines of operations other than military ones when planning international or domestic
operations. Some felt that this type of approach to operations offered a means of inculcating
a culture of information sharing and collaboration among various actors and optimized
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Chapter 4
parallel and integrated planning and execution with other government departments to
attain government objectives. A major caveat to the use of EBO in this way is that it
depends on clearly articulated strategic intent or government aims, and, historically, Western
governments have been reluctant to clearly articulate their strategic intent or aims.
Linkages and Relationships Among EBO and Operational Art, NCW, NEOps,
Information Operations, and Adversary Intent. There were a variety of opinions expressed
during the workshop concerning linkages between EBO and other ways of thinking about
military operations, such as Operational Art, network-centric warfare, Network Enabled
Operations, and information operations (Info Ops), as well as more general concepts in the
national security lexicon, such as strategic art and adversary intent. It was suggested that
Canada needs to have a mechanism for strategic level coordination, akin to the US National
Security Council, that could be used to implement Strategic Art by integrating the activities
of many different actors in the whole-of-government approach, as well as determining
which processes and concepts, (e.g., EBO, operational art, NCW, NEOps, Info Ops, and
adversary intent), should be used in particular circumstances. Based on the notion that EBO
is fundamentally an intellectual process, it was proposed that, in this context, EBO could
elevate operational art to the level of “strategic art.”
A difficulty in practicing both operational art and strategic art today, according
to some at the workshop, is that that too much of the intelligence product now used is
based on kinetic factors and the physical capabilities of the opponent, while not enough
effort is devoted to understanding the adversary’s culture and other non-physical factors.
Some believed that an EBA could be used to try to better understand and predict adversary
behaviour based on culture and other non-physical factors. However, to use this EBA
successfully, a better understanding of the concept of “adversary intent” is required.
Some participants suggested that “adversary intent” could best be understood in

the context of complex adaptive systems, using Basil Liddell Hart’s analogy of the “Man in
the Dark” where conflict was described as a fight between two men in a dark room and each
combatant fights using very limited information about his opponent. However, this simple
analogy assumes the adversary’s only intent is to beat his opponent, whereas this may not be
the case. The adversary may engage in combat as a way of influencing his opponent’s future
actions. Furthermore, the analogy does not take into account the fact that adversaries, and
others we wish to influence, are complex adaptive systems, and that both the initiator and the
target of EBO change during and as a result of the interaction. In these circumstances, the
intent of one or both parties could change during the interaction, and, therefore the effects
required to achieve subsequent change could vary as well.
This simple analogy also does not account for the fact that there are spectators to this
combat, for example, an international audience to some conflicts created by global media.
This complicates operations for an armed force because it needs to consider how its actions
might be interpreted by various parts of the audience, as well as those present in the area
of operations, in order to reduce potentially negative and unintended consequences of its
actions.
88
EBO and CF Force Employment. There was general consensus among the
workshop participants that EBO, if employed by the CF, would affect its force employment.
It was noted that many of the CF’s current effects-based capabilities, such as the capacity
to conduct Info Ops through psychological operations, military deception, and computer
operations has been relegated largely to the Reserve component of the CF. This situation was
attributed to a culturally-based preference in the CF for kinetic approaches to operations,
which has resulted, some claim, in Info Ops not being included in the planning process,
because Info Ops and similar capabilities are seen as peripheral roles for the CF. The result is
that these capabilities are not being developed in a coordinated fashion.
Using an EBA to force employment, many participants argued, would have

significant advantages. An EBAO could conceivably underpin a new whole-of-government
approach to Canada’s actions domestically and abroad by ensuring better organizational
structures, better use of resources, and better co-operation among government agencies and
levels of governments, while at the same time avoiding unnecessary duplication of effort.
Furthermore, EBO has the potential to give those involved in the whole-of-government”
approach a clearer understanding of responsibilities, clearer lines of communications among
all agencies involved, and the potential to be a catalyst for the creation of effective networks
and linkages among those involved.
An impediment to an effective whole-of-government approach in Canada is that

the CF, as the only organization in the Canadian government with a formal, yet flexible,
planning process and a mission-focussed organizational culture, has often led multi-
department planning teams even when the CF was not the lead agency. This situation has
sometimes been described as “leading from behind.” Some participants suggested that in
these circumstances, the CF may need to adapt to other organizational cultures and accept
that the inability of these other organizations to formulate and implement plans as skilfully
as the CF, does not mean that the CF must assume responsibility for them. It was suggested
that in these situations, the CF should encourage other government departments (OGDs)
to assume the commensurate level of responsibility in their areas of expertise and lines of
operation.
From a CF point of view, some participants argued that EBO could prove to be a
better tool for ensuring that desired military effects are clearly articulated before forces are
deployed. EBO could also help to ensure that effects are focussed on national priorities as
opposed the needs of a single environment (i.e., army, navy, or air force) or group.
EBO and CF Force Development. As with force employment, there was general
consensus among the workshop participants that EBO, if employed by the CF, would affect
its force development. Force development was taken to include such issues as concepts,
doctrine, force structure, and personnel development strategies. It was also noted that
force development is a long-term process, whereas force generation occurs in response to
short term needs. One way of looking at the difference between force development and
force generation is that force development is about the structure of the force, while force
generation is about the creation of forces to meet a specific need.
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Chapter 4
It was noted that with the defence, diplomacy, development and commerce (3-D
+C) approach, CF force development issues and activities are evolving, but that this process
is far from complete. For example, the CF has not yet addressed the issue of interoperability
with NGOs, and EBO could be a tool to assist with addressing this and other deficiencies.
Among the force development options, it was suggested by some that the CF needs
greater intelligence and analytical capabilities if EBO is to be used successfully.
A problem that has affected CF force development in the post-Cold War era is that
doctrine and concepts, including those related to EBO, have not kept up with the pace of
change in the CF; therefore, much of the change has been ad hoc.
EBO and CF Force Generation. Force generation, as noted above, was understood
to involve the creation of forces to meet a specific need over a relatively short period of time.
Force generation includes such issues as recruiting, selection, training and education. Solid
force development principles and activities should serve as the base for force generation;
however, as we have seen, force development in the CF has been hampered by deficiencies in
doctrine and concepts. Therefore, many recent force generation activities have been ad hoc,
with predictable adverse outcomes to the long-term health of the CF as an organization.
One immediate effect of EBO on force generation, if it is accepted by the CF as

a philosophy, is that the CF will need to be able to obtain the right people with the right
skill sets to use an EBA. EBO will require people with critical thinking skills, who are able
to understand various cultures, and who are able to conduct analyses to foresee and avoid
potential problems. If the CF is not able to meet these personnel requirements with people in
uniform, it must devise ways to obtain the required expertise from outside the CF.
A vital part of force generation is a combination of military training and professional

education. It was noted that not only will CF training and education institutions have
to prepare CF members, and perhaps others, for work in an EBO environment, but also
that the CF must collaborate with other partners, inside and outside of government, in
developing appropriate training and educational experiences that adequately prepare
personnel to work in an effects-based whole-of-government approach to Canada’s security
issues.
Summary. While workshop participants acknowledged that EBO is an evolving

concept that is interpreted in different ways by different people, if Canada is to be an
effective alliance or coalition partner, members of the CF need to both fully understand EBO
as a concept and know how EBO might apply in a Canadian context.
There was some consensus among workshop participants that EBO should be seen
as a philosophy, rather than a process, and that philosophy implied a top-down, integrated
approach that could be used by a government to achieve a nation’s strategic objectives. The
idea that effects-based operations are “coordinated sets of actions directed at shaping the
behaviour of friends, neutrals, and foes in peace, crisis, and war,” based on Smith’s definition,
90
seemed to many workshop participants to be a good working definition of EBO. However,

many at the workshop felt that the term “effects-based approach to operations” (EBAO) was
a better term to use than EBO, as EBO had become associated with a technologically-based,
largely air force way of conducting operations.
If EBO was to be used as a means of achieving national strategic objectives, it was

felt that EBO needed to be applied in a comprehensive and holistic whole-of-government
way. Furthermore, the changes that were to be produced needed to be based on outcomes,
as opposed to inputs or outputs, and the changes had to be observable and measurable. A
number of obstacles were identified to implementing an effects-based whole-of-government
approach in Canada, including different goals and aims, as well as cultural differences among
government departments. The appearance that EBO was a military methodology where the
military was expected to take the lead, and a failure by successive Canadian governments
to clearly articulate their strategic goals or intent were also identified. Another impediment
to introducing an effects-based whole-of-government approach in Canada is the lack of a
clear and widely accepted definition of EBO and the relative immaturity of the EBA at the
moment.
If EBO is to be successfully applied as whole-of-government approach in Canada,

it was suggested that Canada needs to have a mechanism for determining how strategic
objectives could be attained, determining which processes could be used to optimize
the achievement of these objectives and then coordinating among various actors in the
application of the selected processes.
The EBA could have a significant positive impact on force employment, force
development and force generation, workshop participants concluded. If an EBA is used in
a whole-of-government approach, however, OGDs might need to be brought into the CF
force development process in order to incorporate their expertise at an early stage in the CF
change process. Force development plans will need to address how to maintain the CF’s
kinetic capability while improving its non-kinetic capability. In terms of force generation,
critical thinking skills, an appreciation of intelligence products and the importance of
cultural factors will need to be important parts of CF training and education if the EBA is to
be used by it. Using an EBA, force employment could have significant advantages if it were
part of a whole-of-government approach linking the actions of various agencies to Canadian
strategic objectives.
At the moment, the EBAO has a great deal of potential to make a useful
contribution as a guiding philosophy for the achievement of Canadian strategic objectives.
However, to be a useful tool in this process, much more refinement of the theory underlying
EBO and related concepts is required. The utility of the EBA to the operational and tactical
realms of operations will also be problematic until the theory of the EBA is developed
enough so that its practical applications can be derived.
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Notes
1. Edward A. Smith, Effects Based Operations: Applying Network Centric Warfare in Peace, Crisis
and War, (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, 2003), 108.
2. Colonel J.F. Cottingham, “Effects-Based Operations: An Evolving Revolution,” unpublished paper
written as part of the MA in War Studies program, Royal Military College of Canada, July 2004, 33-34.
3. The Comprehensive Approach, Joint Doctrine Note 4/05, (Shrivenham: UK Joint Doctrine and
Concepts Centre, 2006), pp. 1-1 to 1-2.
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Part IV - Assessing Effects-Based Approaches
The History and Theory of Naval Effects-Based Operations
Chapter 5
The History and Theory of
Naval Effects-Based Operations
Commander Kenneth P. Hansen1
Naval writers have largely shunned the discussion of effects-based operations (EBO),
with at least one authority rejecting the concept outright.2 While airpower advocates and
air-land battle theorists have had rich discussions about such things as whether the origins
of the EBO concept date from the inter-war period or from the post-Vietnam war era, the
best naval writers have been able to muster is to question the impact of network-enabled
operations (NEOps) and network-centric warfare (NCW) on the application of operational
planning processes (OPPs).3
Where is the naval discussion of EBO in relation to the historical principles of sea
power? What is the relationship between networked naval information systems and naval
warfare theory? The importance of history and theory to Canadian military professionals
for gaining an understanding of NEOps as a useful tool was emphasized at a conference held
in late November 2006. Interestingly, the discussion paper tabled at the conference stated:
“… each service in a nation’s armed forces have their own unique paradigm of how military
operations should be conducted based on the physical environment in which they operate,
their historical experience, and their culture.” The paper recognized that the notion of a one-
size-fits-all approach to command and control may not be advisable despite the desirability
of increased jointness, and that there is no consensus between the services on the meaning of
applicable terminology, nor is there a standard model for a networked command and control
system.4
In effect, the Canadian discussions about EBO and the relevance of NEOps to joint
warfare have, once again, highlighted the fundamental differences between sea power and
land power.5 However, EBO advocates are advancing the notion of its joint applicability
without any reference to naval historical context and unsupported by an appreciation of the
underlying theories of naval warfare. Before any commitment is made to the development
of an EBO-based joint doctrine that would compel a common approach to conceptualizing
missions, revising planning processes, and changing the traditional conduct of operations, at
least a cursory knowledge of the roots of EBO in naval history and the theoretical purposes
of NEOps is essential. Once so informed, the long history of deriving strategic effects from
naval operations lends new credibility to the applicability of deriving effects through broadly-
based operations, but the purely attritional nature of tactical naval warfare serves as a warning
against replacing existing theory and methods with an effects-oriented approach to planning
and conducting naval operations.
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Chapter 5
When, in 1911, Sir Julian Corbett set about to frame naval warfare theory in the
joint context, he did so against the backdrop of major turmoil in British naval policy. With
the “Dreadnought Revolution” as a backdrop and the First World War looming, Corbett’s
writings found very little support at the Admiralty, whose leaders were focussed on the
notion of a single major fleet engagement deciding the outcome of the war. In a significant
departure from the seminal works of Admiral Alfred Mahan, whose writings had captivated
the imagination of navies worldwide, Corbett argued that war could not, except in the most
rare of circumstances, be decided solely by naval action, and that its normal effect was always
slow to be felt. Corbett knew that the diverse effects of naval power had their origins in
antiquity. Because people live upon the land, naval power’s purposes should always be aimed
at either enabling or enhancing (or both) the strategic potential of land power, he said.6
Corbett’s writings did not benefit from a unifying concept of war, such as Carl von
Clausewitz’s, which made no statement of any kind on naval warfare. Despite this limitation,
most naval historians and theorists have borrowed extensively from Corbett’s work as they
refined their understanding of the relevance of sea power in joint operations, although some
continue to question the applicability of Clausewitzian theory to all levels of war.7 Corbett’s
grasp of history and theory allowed him to devise a broad view of the utility of sea power and
how it may be exercised in the joint context. Although his theories rankled many flag-rank
officers in his day, they were consistent with the fundamental principles of naval thought and
seamanship that are the basis of naval doctrine.8
The very long developmental history of naval doctrine can be traced in the
professional literature as far back as 1270,9 but Corbett knew that naval forces have
practiced the fundamental concepts and functions of maritime operations since warships
were primarily oar-powered and their main weapon was the ram. Although the advance
of technology meant that the sophistication of the equipments in warships increased
phenomenally, the basic capabilities that dictate whether or not a warship can be assigned to
various missions and tasks can still be described with the same terms as they were centuries
ago, as shown in Table 5-1.
Whether warships were propelled by oars, sails, or screws, Corbett knew that there
was a dynamic tension between the need for naval forces to concentrate to enhance their
offensive and defensive powers, and the need to disperse over a broad area of ocean in order
to gather the information needed for the commander to confidently carry out the assigned
mission or task. The concept of “Sea Control” demanded that the assigned area be under
the surveillance of a capable naval force, which had the inevitable effect of forcing the fleet
to spread out. Nevertheless, within the assigned area, intensive concentration was safe and
effective for the fleet locally, but in this situation, enemy naval forces could operate with
impunity just outside of the assigned area away from any concentration of forces. Therefore,
the area was not, strictly speaking, “under control.” Excessive dispersion, on the other hand,
allowed commanders to surveille their assigned areas effectively, but presented possibilities
for defeat in detail of their forces, sometimes with an attendant loss of the all-important
numerical advantage and the inability to achieve tasks due to disaggregating.10 The ability to
concentrate in a timely fashion in order to engage effectively was always the greatest challenge
for naval operational-level and tactical-level commanders.
96
Roles Concepts Functions Capabilities Missions Tasks

Military Force Power Strike/Move/ Capture/Secure/ Sink/Disable/Land/
Projection Impose Invade/ Embark
Counterforce Evacuate
Fleet Attack/Defend Destroy/Protect Engage/Patrol/Screen
Sea Control
Engagement
Sea Denial Fleet-in- Attack/Defend Contain/Protect Distract/Patrol/
Being Engage
Deterrence Trade Attack/Defend Destroy/Protect Sink/Escort/Patrol
Warfare
Lines-of-
Communi- Exclusion Prohibit Exclude Stop
cation
Concentration
Support Sustainment Replenish Provide
Sealift Movement Transport Embark/Disembark
Dispersion
Command**
Interdiction Coordinate**
Centre-of-
Gravity Control**
Manoeuvre
Poise
Logistical*
Consta- Domain- Safety of Life Administer/ Facilitate/Monitor Surveille/Search/

bulary Awareness at Sea Respond Rescue
National Assert Enforce/Facilitate Surveille/Patrol/Stop
Sovereignty Authority
Oceans Enable/Assert Facilitate/Enforce Surveille/Patrol/Stop
Stewardship Management
Aid to the Augment Facilitate Assist
Civil Power
Diplomatic Rule of Law Disaster Movement/ Facilitate/Direct Assist/Provide
Relief Respond
Human
Rights Deterrence Presence/Coercion Prevent/Dissuade Demonstrate/Show
Evacuation Movement/ Remove Rescue/Protect
Pride Accommodate
Reputation Interception Inspect Enforce Monitor/Stop
Representation Host/Visit Facilitate Demonstrate/Show
Credibility
Cooperation Communicate*** Various Demonstrate/Show
Logistical* - Includes: endurance (mechanical and human), range, reach (logistical

in conjunction with combat-related functions), capacity, and rates of supply, movement, and
consumption.
Command** - (as well as Coordinate and Control) are capabilities relevant to all
roles in all functions.
Communicate*** - in the sense of relating intent in a comprehensible fashion.
Table 5-1. Maritime Operational Descriptive Terminology
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Chapter 5
Once opposing naval forces came into contact, the effects of gun-based firepower
resulted in attrition that had a very predictable outcome based on the numbers of the
two sides. In the symmetrical engagements that were predominant in Corbett’s time,
technological advantage almost never outweighed numerical advantage because force-on-
force engagements resulted in attrition to both sides, and the side with a numerical advantage
tended to slowly “erode” the combat power of its opponent, despite any technological
advantage that the opponent might have. As the action wore on, the advantage tended to
grow for the numerically superior side and the outcomes of extended engagements were
typically disastrous for the inferior force. While the slow progress of erosive firepower gave
opportunities for inferior forces to disengage from a potential calamity, the only way for
an inferior force to defeat a superior force was to locate the opposition first, manoeuvre
aggressively so as to concentrate what forces the inferior force could against a part of the
superior force’s fleet, and then to quickly exploit this temporary vulnerability in the superior
force by striking first at the point of contact.11 This happened only rarely in history.
Just as Corbett was writing, a major change began to take place in the way naval
firepower was delivered in combat. Rather than erosive firepower from guns, a “pulsed”
form of firepower from such weapons as torpedoes, aerial bombs, and eventually missiles,
began to change the way that major fleet engagements and other minor tactical actions
were conducted. Enormous amounts of destructive power could be delivered in a very brief
span of time, which had the potential to destroy even major warships outright or to render
them ineffective for further combat. As time progressed, the threat from torpedo boats
and submarines, aircraft (including suicide attacks), and unmanned vehicles launched and
controlled from shore or the air, challenged the two ancient standard methodologies of naval
organization for combat. While concentration for attack and massing for defence could still
be effective, the consequences of an enemy firing effectively first could be so instantaneously
devastating that no opportunity to disengage and save the majority of the fleet from
destruction existed. As the destructive potential of the attacker increased, the importance of
scouting for information compelled further dispersion for both the attacker and defender,
but weakened both the potential of their striking power and their counterforce defensive
power.
What finally prompted a radical change to the traditional tension between the need
to disperse (to gather information) and concentrate (for layered defence) in naval warfare
was the Information Technology Revolution. This combination of information gathering,
processing and display, and dissemination capabilities made it possible to simultaneously
extend the information gathering network for the sake of area control, and allowed dispersed
units to engage in an offensive fashion without the need to first concentrate to be effective.
In this context, the question of massing for defence becomes a very complicated series of
calculations that weigh the relative strength of the attacker versus the defender. To put it
simply, when massing is expected to be effective for defence, the fleet should be concentrated,
which implies a loss of effectiveness for scouting. If the aggregate defensive capabilities of
the fleet are inferior to the attacking capabilities of the enemy, the fleet should be dispersed
to prevent annihilation, which will surely occur if the enemy can penetrate the defender’s
anti-scouting and counterforce measures.12 Thus, for the first time in naval history, a truly
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revolutionary development changed the ways in which naval warfare theory is applied to
the principal function of fleet engagement and how subsidiary forms of tactical actions are
conducted in practice.
Effect
Level* Aim Methods Concepts Tasks
Domains***
Strategic Objective Offensive/Defensive Maritime- Determine End States Cultural,
Containment / Major Operations** Cognitive,
(Political) (DDD&C -Diplomacy, Informational,
Land-Engagement Physical
Development,
Defence, &
Commerce)
Opera- Objective Offensive/Defensive (M) From Table Determine Major Informational,
tional One Operations** Cognitive,
(Conceptual) (Joint/Service/Other) / Synchronize Cultural,
(L) From Land Capabilities Physical
Doctrine
Tactical Objective Offensive/Defensive Symmetric/ Sequence Activities Physical,
Asymmetric (Arising from Tasks in Informational,
(Physical) (Direct/Indirect/ Table One) Cognitive,
Parallel) Cultural
*Level is determined by the nature of the objective, not the size or capability of the
forces involved.
**Determine Major Operations - historically, examples exist of major operations

being determined at each level.
***Effect domains are listed in their approximate order of importance at each level.
Table 5-2. Relationship of Levels of Maritime Activity to Effects
With so much emphasis on the conduct of high-intensity combat, naval

professionals are now, just as they were in Corbett’s day, in danger of losing the broader
view of naval effects due to the overwhelming importance of the attritional nature of naval
combat. Although often overshadowed by the blindingly swift and horrifyingly destructive
combat potential of fleet units, all of the other traditional functions of sea power within
the naval military role, as well as the naval constabulary and diplomatic roles, remain as
valid in the present age as they were in the ages of oars, sails, and the “big gun” battleships.
Governments with naval capabilities are (or should be) aware that cognitive, cultural,
informational, and physical effects can be derived from all levels of maritime activities, and
that these missions and tasks are not, nor have they ever been, limited to naval warfare, as
shown in Table 5-2. The centuries-long association of naval forces with trade warfare is the
most obvious example of this truism, although maritime history is replete with a myriad
of others. In complete accord with the attritional nature of naval combat, most tactical
actions will have more immediate physical effects, but the more violent and decisive they
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are, the more likely it is that they will also have effect in the other three domains. It is also
completely consistent with naval theory that naval tactical operations are shaped against
physical objectives, either directly or indirectly attacking enemy maritime capabilities.
The employment of asymmetrical means to accomplish these sorts of objectives has been
commonplace since just before the beginning of the twentieth century, the adherents of the
Jeune École being among the most famous to seek strategic effect through this approach.13
The extreme breadth of the naval roles and their long history of application mean
that sea power has always been linked to leveraging national strategic capabilities. Indeed, for
maritime nations sea power has been the single most important lever, which has traditionally
been used as part of a strategy of containment wherein like-minded nations formed
alliances and used their collective dominance of the world’s oceans to preserve their strategic
advantage. Although EBO advocates claim that “focussing only on the degradation of an
adversary’s military combat power does not represent a holistic approach to future combat
operations,”14 sea power has always been founded on the swift and decisive application
of tactical combat power against enemy fleet forces at the earliest possible juncture. Any
scheme of action that imposes some other methodology is likely to result in delays and
increased cost in the application of the other functions of sea power, which have been shown
to be traditionally slow to take effect.
In the current context, plans to implement an effects-based approach to planning

are inconsistent with the underpinning naval requirement for swift and decisive tactical
engagement.15 While naval operations in all three roles at all three levels of warfare have
a long history of effects, both intended and unintended, and sea power is recognized as a
robust network of associated capabilities, it is an anathema to naval logic to pause at any
level of activity while attempting to ascertain whether or not an anticipated effect has been
achieved. Corbett had it right when he said: “Unaided, naval pressure can only work by a
process of exhaustion.”16 Sea power must be unrelenting in order for it to be effective, and it
is most effective when the natural volumetric capacity and strategic speed of maritime force
is used to deliver massive combat power with overwhelming effectiveness. This operational
form of naval power projection is unique from the land conception of manoeuvre warfare
and has been described as “power warfare.” 17
Recent analysis of the EBO approach to the planning and conduct of combat
operations has produced further uncomplimentary assessments of the EBO approach. The
main criticism has been that promises of achieving decisive “effects” earlier by less costly
means resulted in confusion and loss of operational tempo when the desired effects could not
be measured or were simply not achieved as anticipated. Secondary criticisms charged that,
based on the promises of air power advocates using EBO concepts to buttress their claims,
politicians authorized damaging reductions in army and navy force structures and readiness
levels.18 These observations conform to the warnings of the only naval theorist to venture
into the debate and should serve as a caution to naval professionals that placing effects ahead
of objectives in the planning process, or worse, replacing completely the achievement of
objectives with effects, is foreign to the way that sea power has been, and continues to be,
applied across the spectrum of conflict. While it is perfectly acceptable and usual to discuss
100
the effects of naval operations at all levels of planning, true jointness cannot be achieved by
compelling naval experts to depart from a style of warfare that is both centuries old in its
formulation and is in the midst of the single greatest transformation in its long history.
The signpost of only the second-ever revolution in naval affairs will be whether
or not the dawning “age of robotics” will affect the traditional requirement of warships to
concentrate for defensive effectiveness. Will the anti-scouting and counterforce capabilities
of traditionally-disposed fleet forces be strong enough to defeat a “swarming” attack by
unmanned vehicles that are both unflinchingly “courageous” and absolutely expendable?
Or will networked forces develop the ability to engage collectively while still dispersed?
Certainly, a suicidal willingness to press an attack to point-blank range is not new in naval
warfare. New assessments claim that swarming will be a tactic employed in the near future.19
However, modern warships are no longer built with the same degree of armour and inherent
durability that was once a common physical feature of them. Likewise, the speed, range,
and lethality of modern defensive and offensive weapons are much greater than ever before.
When these features are combined, it will likely serve as yet another example of how the
tactical conduct of naval warfare will achieve strategic effects by forcing completely new
methodologies for the practical application of the ancient and still valid functions of sea
power.
Notes
1. The views presented in this paper are attributable solely to the author and are not to be construed
in any way as declarations of policy by the Government of Canada, the Department of National Defence or
the Canadian Forces, or any member of the Canadian Forces other than the author. The author wishes to
acknowledge the timely assistance provided by Prof. Milan N. Vego, US Naval War College, Newport, R.I., in
locating the references by Amos Harel and Fariborz Haghshenass.
2. Milan N. Vego, “Effect-Based Operations: A Critique,” Joint Forces Quarterly 41, no. 2 (2006),
51-7.
3. Eric J. Dahl, “Network Centric Warfare and the Death of Operational Art,”Defence Studies 2, no.
1 (Spring 2002), 1-24.
4. Joe Sharpe and Allan English, “Network Enabled Operations: The Experience Of Senior
Canadian Commander,” Defence R & D Canada (Toronto), Contract Report Number 7908-04, 31 March 2006,
iii – iv, 2-3, 21-24.
5. Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat ( Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press,
2000), 172-74.
6. Julian S. Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy (London, UK: Conway Maritime, 1972),
13-14.
7. Mark Cancian, “Centers of Gravity Are a Myth,” US Naval Institute Proceedings 124, no. 9
(September 1998), 30‑34.
8. John B. Hattendorf, Naval History and Maritime Strategy: Collected Essays (Malabar, FL: Kreiger,
2000), 241.
9. JamesTritten, Lessons and Conclusions from the History of Navy and Military Doctrinal Development
(Norfolk, VA: US Navy Naval Doctrine Command, 1997), 2.
10. Canadian Forces College, Naval Doctrine Manual (MCP 1) (Toronto, ON: Maritime
Component Programme, 2006), Chapter 4, pp. 21-3. See also: Hughes, Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat, 73-4.
11. Hughes, Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat, 40.
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12. Ibid., 286-90.

13. Arne Røksund, “The Jeune École: The Strategy of the Weak,” in Rolf Hobson and Tom
Kristiansen, eds., Navies in Northern Waters, 1721-2000 (London: Frank Cass, 2004), 117-50. See also: Erik J.
Dahl, “Net-centric before its Time: The Jeune École and Its Lessons for Today,” Naval War College Review 58, no.
4 (Autumn 2005), 109-36.
14. Robert Vermaas, “Future Perfect: Effects Based Operations, Complexity and the Human
Environment,” Directorate of Operational Research (Joint) Research Note 2004/01 (Ottawa, ON: National
Defence, 2004), 4-5.
15. Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., “The Strategy-Tactics Relationship,” in Colin S. Gray and Roger W.
Barnett, eds., Seapower and Strategy (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989), 47-76.
16. Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, 13-14.
17. Wayne P. Hughes, Jr, “Naval Maneuver Warfare,” Naval War College Review 50, no. 3 (Summer
1997), 25-49.
18. Amos Harel, “IDF the Unready,” Ha’aretz (15 December 2006). Available at http://www.haaretz.
com/hasen/spages/801402.html. Accessed 22 December 2006; and “New Report on Lebanon war criticizes IDF’s
Chief ’s conduct,” Ha’aretz (12 December 2006). Available at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/799738.
html. Accessed 22 December 2006.
19. Fariborz Haghshenass, “Iran’s Doctrine of Asymmetric Naval Warfare,” The Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, Policy Watch website, report no. 1179, 21 December 2006. Available at http://www.
washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2548. Accessed 30 December 2006.
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Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid - Effects-Based Operations
Chapter 6
Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid – Effects-Based Operations
Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Magee
“…when we speak of destroying the enemy’s forces…nothing obliges us to limit this

idea to physical forces: the moral element must also be considered.”
Clausewitz
Recent events have seen a resurgence in the desire to embrace Effects-Based

Operations (EBO) as the solution to the perceived shortfalls in the current operational
design and planning construct. 1 Yet despite the drive to replace contemporary elements of
operational design and the Canadian Forces operational planning process (CFOPP) with
EBO, there remains a level of confusion surrounding it - specifically what EBO actually
is. This confusion is compounded by the fact that a large number of Canadian officers are
using terms like EBO without a clear understanding of what they actually mean, or without
a common agreement—doctrinally approved or otherwise—on how the concepts the terms
represent should be employed. The result is a perception amongst a growing number that
EBO is a commonly understood and accepted construct, which has, or is replacing the
current operational design methodology. In short, they have drunk the Kool-Aid without
fully understanding the implications. This perception has led some to suggest that the
current construct for operational design and planning is no longer valid. The danger is
that the perception is based on some false assumptions, for example, that the contemporary
elements of operational design are kinetic and linear in nature. The reality, however, is that
many proponents of EBO lack a firm understanding of current doctrinal concepts and that
their speech and writing are filled with an unintelligible “effects-speak,” which adds to the
confusion and misunderstanding of both the contemporary elements of operational design,
as well as EBO.
The lack of a clear understanding and consensus on what EBO is and what it is
not, within a Canadian context, was highlighted at the EBO conference in November 2006,
whose conclusions are summarized in Part III. Even amongst a group knowledgeable in the
area of EBO, there was little agreement on either the utility of EBO or on what it actually
means. Obviously, choosing an inherently imprecise term presents a range of dangers for a
profession that requires precision and clarity in language to avoid misunderstandings that
might lead to confusion in battles and operations.2 While there is a great deal of literature
on the subject of EBO, most seems to be “thought pieces” with little in the way of actually
explaining how to apply or operationalize EBO. The foundational piece used by the
participants of the conference was Colonel J.F. Cottingham’s “Effects-Based Operations, An
Evolving Revolution” (see Part III); therefore, for ease of reference, his work will be used in
this paper as the foundational piece in relation to EBO.
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EBO originated as an airpower theory that suggested an enemy could be defeated

by affecting systems rather than simply servicing targets. Cottingham notes that the early
proponents of airpower suggested that attacking and destroying specific targets “would result
in a collapse of the enemy’s economy and strategic war making ability.”3
The early proponents used the term “destroy,” which is generally associated with
attritionist or old-think warfare, and not “applying effects” when describing their early
version of EBO. Additionally, their focus was—and many today would argue continues to
be—at the strategic level of war. The maturing of the theory saw a shift to the destruction
of key nodes, which if successfully destroyed would have the maximum effect on the overall
conduct of the war. This basic philosophy of key nodes is seen throughout the evolution
of EBO, including that of Warden. However, Cottingham suggests that the central thesis
of EBO is best captured by this statement from Force Transformation, Office of the US
Secretary of Defense:
In the …effects based contest, the objective is to break the will or otherwise
shape the behaviour of the enemy so that he no longer retains the will to
fight, or to so disorient him that he can no longer fight or react coherently.
Although physical destruction remains a factor in EBO, it is the creation
of such a psychological or cognitive effect that is the primary focus of the
effects-based approach.4
It is from this perspective that EBO is often proposed as an alternative to

attrition-based or kinetic warfare, seen by EBO proponents as the logical outcome of the
contemporary operational design construct. But as General Fastabend points out, this
has never been the true basis of operational design doctrine. Citing the fundamentals of
campaign plans found in US Joint Doctrine Publication 5-00, Fastabend reminds us that:
…campaigns are not isolated from other government efforts to achieve na-
tional strategic objectives. Military power is used in conjunction with other
instruments of national power — diplomatic, economic, and informational
— to achieve strategic objectives. Depending on the nature of the opera-
tion, a military campaign may be the main effort, or it may be used to sup-
port diplomatic or economic efforts. A campaign must be coordinated with
nonmilitary efforts to ensure that all actions work in harmony to achieve the
ends of policy.5
To realize this aim, the campaign plan seeks to achieve unity of effort with air, land,
sea, space, and special operations forces, in conjunction with interagency, multinational,
nongovernmental, or United Nations (UN) forces, as required. On a similar note, current
Canadian Forces doctrine states, “a campaign is the integration and sequencing of operations
and engagements to achieve a desired strategic effect.”6 In discussing campaign planning, the
Canadian Forces College (CFC) Combined and Joint Staff Officer’s Handbook (CJSOH)
describes campaign design as “the Joint Force Commander’s vision...of how actions and
effects will be sequenced.”7 According to doctrine, there are several operational concepts
104
that are fundamental to the design and conduct of campaigns. Of particular interest for
this paper are the end state and the decisive point. As will be shown below, these classical
elements of operational design, ideas currently enshrined in doctrine, have always generated
effects.
Current instruction at the CFC emphasizes “end state planning.” That is,
commanders and their staffs must identify the desired strategic end state and from that end
state, plan how the military element of power can be applied to deliver desired effects needed
to help set the conditions necessary for achieving the end state. The end state is defined
as “the political and/or military situation to be obtained at the end of an operation, which
indicates that the objective has been achieved.”8 B-GJ-005-500/FP-000 (Canadian Forces
Operations) adds that the “end state includes the required conditions that, when achieved,
attain the strategic goal.”9
B-GJ-005-500/FP-000 further defines a decisive point as “a battlespace condition

that must be achieved in order to threaten or attack the adversary’s center of gravity.”10 The
manual adds, “A sound determination of decisive points indicates the conditions that must
be set.”11
DP DP
CURRENT DP DP
SITUATION END
STATE
DP DP
EFFECTS ARE APPLIED TO ACHIEVE THE NEEDED CONDITIONS
CAPABILITIES ARE APPLIED IN CONJUNCTION WITH

OTHERS TO ACHIEVE EFFECTS
LAND AIR MARITIME SOF NON-MILITARY
Figure 6-1. A Depiction of Aspects of the Canadian Forces Operations Planning Process
Therefore, as shown by these examples, extant Canadian Forces doctrine tells us that
commanders and planners should be thinking in terms of those conditions that are desired
in order to achieve the strategic goal. Furthermore, CF doctrine also says that “the essence
of operational design for a campaign is in its ability to mass joint effects.”12 Thus, doctrinally,
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Chapter 6
conditions are realized by applying effects in the battlespace. The identification of those
battlespace effects needed to achieve the desired conditions is listed as a task—orientation—
under stage two of the CFOPP.13 As the process progresses from operational design to
operational planning, in discussing targeting, doctrine states that the prioritized target list
includes “the desired effects.”14
In short, in order to achieve the desired end state a number of conditions must be
met (decisive points). In order to achieve the desired conditions, effects must be applied, and
effects are generated from capabilities available to the joint force commander (JFC). Figure
6-1 illustrates this process in the current operational design and planning construct.
In examining Antulio Echevarria’s ideas, Cottingham concludes that unlike

“traditional army views,” Echehevarria’s argument focusses on the objective and effects and
in so doing “shifts the emphasis of analysis from destruction to creation of a condition or an
effect.”15 It would seem from this statement that EBO is partly based on the assumption that
until the arrival of EBO, military leaders have been unconcerned by “effects.” As indicated by
the discussion of the current operational design and planning construct above, however, this
assumption is incorrect, because the idea of effects has been clearly articulated within current
CF doctrine and being taught at CFC. The reality, as expressed by Deptula, is that “the idea
of targeting systems to achieve strategic results is not a new one.”16 In fact, his “emphasis on
the end-state or the objective and the search for ways to create desired effects”17 in order to
achieve the end state is a consistent theme within current CF doctrine.
However, Cottingham notes that EBO has evolved from its origins, and the “second
version of EBO” is, one could argue, in essence a return to doctrinal basics in which all
elements of national power need to be integrated in order to achieve success. The other
perspective that could be taken from Cottingham’s analysis is that while EBO version 1
provides an element of success in conventional force-on-force operations—the first Gulf
War and early stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom clearly being excellent examples—it is
not effective in asymmetric warfare. The apparent failure of EBO version 1 was clearly
demonstrated in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars, a fact that, as Cottingham points out,
EBO enthusiasts generally choose to ignore.
The main weakness with EBO is that it is largely based on a reductionist approach
to understanding enemy systems. That is, EBO seems to work reasonably well with
systems that have low interactive complexity, but they will fall flat against systems with
high interactive complexity, such as social, military, governmental, political, and economic
systems. As Fastabend argues, “there are differences between structurally complex
systems—such as integrated air defense systems and power grids—and interactively complex
systems—such as economic and leadership systems.”18 Given that the entire Air Force
planning model is focussed on targeting, and for the most part on physical systems, EBO is
eminently sensible for the Air Force. However, conflict, especially at the operational level,
occurs in more than the physical domain. In the physical domain, the world of cause and
effect, EBO might work, within the limitations discussed above. In the information domain,
the realm of decision-making, not only by military commanders but also by populations
106
and whole societies, the causal effects of action are far less clear. Those causal linkages
disappear completely in the moral domain, the realm of belief, conviction, and motivation.19
It is, therefore, dangerous to pretend that databases and science drive the moral domain.20
Operational planners can understand the physical domain using the reductionism of
systems analysis; however, they can only understand the second and third type of domains
holistically.
In an apparent attempt to keep the concept alive, some participants at the DRDC
workshop suggested that EBO is entering into, or is actually in, its third stage of evolution,
or “third version.” This third version is one that posits not only the integration of all
elements of national power, but also a renewed focus on the moral as well as the physical
plain. There is a great deal of literature that equates EBO to operations using all elements
of national power, often referred to as joint, interagency, multinational and public (JIMP)
operations. But the JIMP approach is also embedded in existing doctrine; this is clearest in
US Joint doctrine, which states:
All JFCs [Joint Force Commanders] are responsible for unified actions that
are planned and conducted in accordance with the guidance and direction
received from senior authorities (i.e., NCA [National Command Author-
ity], alliance or coalition leadership, and superior commander). JFCs should
ensure that their joint operations are integrated and synchronized in time,
space, and purpose with the actions of other military forces (multinational
operations) and nonmilitary organizations (government agencies such as
the Agency for International Development; nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs) and the UN).
The limitations of a solely military solution to complex problems are also

highlighted by the CJSOH, when describing peace support operations. In this type of
operation, the military campaign “is not conducted with the aim of achieving the end state,
but of setting the conditions within which diplomatic, humanitarian and developmental
agencies can successfully achieve this objective.”21 This is a clear acknowledgement of the
need for a whole-of-government or JIMP-like approach. There is a consensus that the
joint force must be better at integrating all instruments of national power and broaden
its perspective beyond just military force, resources and actions. EBO does set a higher
premium on integrating the other instruments of national power and calls for a better
understanding of the operational environment. But perhaps EBO brings with it, not a
newer and more effective design and planning construct, but rather a less intimidating
lexicon. Military planners, particularly Army planners, consistently underestimate how
the fundamentals of military planning can be intimidating to those not in the military,
“and sometimes to other services,” as Fastabend jokes. Many can be intimidated by terms
like “mission,” “objective,” “end state,” and “assumptions,” as used in the military planning
context because of a perceived focus on lethal means; therefore, a lexicon that moves
away from the perceived focus on lethal means is desirable. What is also clear is that the
language of effects, either from EBO or from extant doctrine is more suited to working with
interagency, other government agencies, and non-governmental organizations.22
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Yet despite EBO’s shortcomings, its proponents continue to push it as “the way
ahead” and in doing so fail to acknowledge that many of the fundamental aspects of EBO
are already incorporated within contemporary operational design. While this difference
of professional opinion can lead to a series of thought-provoking debates, it has resulted in
diverting intellectual efforts from clearly refining existing concepts, while identifying those
opposed to EBO as dinosaurs or anti-transformationalist.
In summary, we do not need another label that on the surface suggests a newer,
better method of solving complex operational problems, but in reality only serves to confuse
an already complex environment. Words have consequences, outcomes, and “effects,”
and the military should think carefully about what those effects are. The joint force is
dealing with operational art – the linkage of tactical means to strategic ends. As US Army
General Wallace is quoted as saying: “It’s kinda sort of important!”23 There is no reason to
reinvent the wheel, as the current doctrine and concepts explicitly and implicitly point the
commander and planner to thinking effects. Joint doctrine effectively describes current
constructs for planning and operations; therefore, this doctrine should not be wholly
supplanted by EBO concepts and methodologies. But there is some room for improvement
in current doctrine. This could be accomplished by integrating a few of the elements of
EBO into current processes, or by clarifying some of the extant doctrine to ensure a better
integration of other instruments of national power with military power; a better, systemic
understanding of the operational environment; and a better assessment of the effects of our
actions against the achievement of objectives and the end state. But these actions should
occur using the current constructs for design and planning, thereby reducing confusion and
providing the joint force with improved capability. Put down the cup of Kool-Aid and read,
and then apply existing doctrine.
Notes
1. Current operational design and planning consist of a number of elements. For the purposes of
this paper the term “contemporary elements of operational design” will be the overarching term used to include
centre of gravity, decisive points, and lines of operation.
2. Taken from a briefing package presented by Major-General David Fastabend, Commander US
Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Futures on 31 Jan 2006. In possession of the author.
3. Colonel J.F. Cottingham, “Effects-Based Operations: An Evolving Revolution,” unpublished
paper written as part of the MA in War Studies program, Royal Military College of Canada, July 2004, 8.
4. Original quote from United States, Military Transformation: A Strategic Approach (Washington,
DC: Director, Force Transformation, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Fall 2003), 36.
5. Fastabend presentation.
6. DND, Canadian Forces Operations, B-GJ-005-300/FP-000 (2004), p. 3-1.
7. Canadian Forces College (CFC) Combined and Joint Staff Officer’s Handbook (CJSOH), p. II-1-3/16.
8. Canadian Forces Operations, B-GJ-005-300/FP-000, p. 3-1.
9. Ibid., p. 2-2.
10. Ibid., p. 3-1.
108
11. Ibid., p. 2-3.

12. Ibid., p. 2-8.
13. Ibid., p. 4A-1.
14. Ibid., p. 5-9.
15. Cottingham, 33.
16. Ibid., 20.
17. Ibid., 21.
19. Ibid.
20. The dissatisfaction with EBO has resulted in a growing interest in Systemic Operational Design,
developed by Israeli Brigadier (Reserve) Dr Shimon Naveh, which moves from a science-based predictive
approach to a philosophical-based approach for analysis.
21. CFC, CJSOH, p. II-1-6/16.
23. Ibid.
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Chapter 7
Putting Lipstick on a Pig: The Effects-Based Approach
and Strategic Art
Lieutenant-Colonel Craig Dalton
The practitioners of EBA (effects-based approach) profess many assertions and defend
their methods at the level of doctrine. However, the deep theory of the effects-based
approach rests on several philosophical mistakes – metaphysical, epistemological, and
logical mistakes…We should expect mostly mistakes as a result of a practice resting on
a mistaken theory, for only by accident and not by design could anything good come
out of it.1
Dr. Tim Challans
In a 1995 article entitled “Strategic Art: The New Discipline For 21st Century
Leaders,” Major-General Richard A. Chilcoat issued an appeal for strategists to “match
success in the development of operational art and joint doctrine with an equally
comprehensive approach to strategic art as a distinct discipline….”2 Considering the
complex challenges confronting practitioners of strategic art in the contemporary operating
environment, as evidenced by the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Chilcoat’s
appeal may be more pressing than ever. While this paper does not in any way attempt to
fully answer his appeal, it does intend to contribute in a small way to the development of
strategic art by considering the following question: Could application of the effects-based
approach enhance the practice of strategic art in a Canadian context?
In order to consider whether or not application of the effects-based approach could

enhance the practice of strategic art, one must address two seemingly simple, yet in reality
somewhat difficult, questions. First, what is strategic art? Second, what is the effects-based
approach? The intent is for this simple, yet logical approach to shed light on both concepts
and to lead to some relevant conclusions regarding the potential application of the effects-
based approach to the practice of strategic art.
To define and develop an understanding of strategic art as a discipline, one must

take a step back and first consider the meaning of the term “strategy.” When doing so one
should bear in mind the words of Arthur F. Lykke, Jr., who observed that strategy has “no
universal definition, nor even the approximation of a consensus.”3 Lykke further contended
that a plethora of definitions and loose application of the term “strategy” detracts from sound
consideration of this important and complex subject.4 Mindful of Lykke’s observation and
hopeful to avoid detracting from sound consideration, it therefore seems prudent to begin
by defining the following terms: “national strategy,” “military strategy,” and the associated
concept of “strategic art.”
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Putting Lipstick on a Pig: The Effects-Based Approach and Strategic Art
Fortunately, Canadian Forces doctrine is quite helpful in this regard. B-GJ-005-

300/FP-000 – Canadian Forces Operations considers military strategy and the application
of the military instrument of power within the context of national security strategy, noting
that “a nation employs all of its resources - political, economic, scientific, technological,
psychological and military - to achieve the objectives of national policy.” Canadian doctrine
further defines military strategy as “that component of national or multinational strategy that
presents the manner in which military power should be developed and applied to achieve
national objectives or those of a group of like-minded nations.”5 From these passages, one
can see that the CF perspective on national strategy (the application of all instruments of
national power in pursuit of national objectives) and military strategy (the co-ordinated
application of the military instrument of power in support of national security interests) is
consistent with the commonly accepted western strategic paradigm of co-ordinated ends,
ways and means. Of note, from the perspective of strategic art, is the emphasis that CF
doctrine places on the requirement to co-ordinate the various instruments of national power
and to consider the multinational perspective.
Canadian doctrine is less helpful in defining or addressing the concept of strategic

art. Presently, Canadian doctrine does not acknowledge strategic art as a practice, nor
does it discuss strategic art from a theory or process perspective, suggesting that perhaps
Chilcoat’s appeal has gone largely unanswered in this country. Therefore, in the absence
of a Canadian definition, this paper employs Chilcoat’s definition of strategic art, which is
consistent with the CF’s definition of strategy. He defined it as follows: “Strategic art entails
the orchestration of all the instruments of national power to yield specific, well-defined end
states. Strategic Art, broadly defined, is therefore: The skilful formulation, co-ordination, and
application of ends (objectives), ways (courses of action), and means (supporting resources)
to promote and defend the national interests.”6 Armed with suitable definitions for the
terms “strategy” and “strategic art,” it is time to consider the environment in which they are
practiced.
In a 2002 article entitled “Operational Art for the Objective Force,” Colonel James
K. Greer identified the challenges posed by the contemporary operating environment,
highlighting its increasingly complex and adaptive nature and suggesting that the evolving
security environment demanded a new approach to operational and strategic art.7 Citing
examples of what he termed “full spectrum operations,” Greer argued that the traditional
approach to the application of the military instrument of power was of little benefit to
commanders and planners in their efforts to design campaigns and major operations beyond
conventional force-on-force scenarios. In short, traditional approaches failed to address two
key characteristics of the contemporary operating environment: the demands associated with
functioning in a complex adaptive systems environment, and the requirement to integrate,
to a new degree, all the instruments of national power in considering problems in a broader
context. While Greer focussed specifically on the operational level of warfare, his insights—
shared by numerous military theorists and practitioners of strategic and operational art—
applied equally to the strategic level of war and to the practice of strategic art. Greer not only
identified the challenge posed by the contemporary operating environment, he also identified
a number of emerging concepts that offered potential benefit to practitioners of operational
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Chapter 7
and strategic art. One of the concepts identified by Greer, the effects-based approach, has
since been the subject of considerable research, experimentation and development. Recently,
versions of the effects-based approach have been incorporated, to varying degrees, into both
US and UK joint doctrine, which prompted this inquiry into the potential application of the
effects-based approach to the practice of strategic art in a Canadian context.
In examining the effects-based approach, one must be aware that there is no single,
commonly accepted definition of the term. Rather, there are numerous versions of the
effects-based approach and at least 12 different definitions.8 Moreover, while the different
definitions and versions of the effects-based approach share some common themes, debate
abounds as to the theoretical and logical soundness of the concept in general, as well as the
many varied processes associated with particular versions. J.P. Hunerwadel, a proponent of
the effects-based approach, noted: “there are as many opinions about what EBO actually is
as there are people who have written on the subject….We talk effects, we teach effects, we
claim to ‘do’ effects, but we’ve come to no definitive conclusions concerning what effects
and effects-based means.”9 The intent in exposing this fact here is not to critique the effects-
based approach, as satisfying as that temptation may be. Instead, the intent is merely to set
the stage for further discussion below and to serve as a caution for subsequent consideration
of its potential utility as an enabler of strategic art.
From its beginnings in the US Air Force as a targeting methodology, to its

development (in concert with the concept of network-centric warfare) as a theory of war,
to its present existence as an enabler of operational and strategic art (in US joint doctrine),
and a philosophy (in some UK joint doctrine), the effects-based approach has generated
considerable debate amongst theorists and practitioners of operational and strategic art.
Proponents suggest that the effects-based approach “is a mind-set …that should be inherent
in all military operations” and contend that adopting this “mind-set” will “ensure that
military strategy, if successfully completed, will achieve or contribute to the political goals
set before it.”10 Proponents of EBO also argue that “conceptually, EBO may enable desired
aims to be achieved without the need for attritional warfare….”11 Furthermore, US Joint
Doctrine on Effects Based Planning prescribes particular processes based on the premise
that the effects-based approach holds the key to addressing the challenges posed by complex
adaptive systems.12 At the less deterministic end of the spectrum is the British effects-based
philosophy which suggests that “the military instrument needs to act in harmony with
the diplomatic and economic instruments of national power in taking a long-term view
to address both the underlying causes and the overt symptoms of a crisis,” and that the
effects-based approach “…considers the whole environment, recognising that it is complex,
unpredictable and adaptive….”13 On the surface, this broad range of claims suggests that
the effects-based approach holds much promise; however, there are many who dispute these
claims and question the uniqueness and/or validity of the effects-based approach.
Critics of the effects-based approach range from those such as Ralph Peters (who
suggests that “EBO isn’t a strategy. It’s a sales pitch…”),14 to those such as Tim Challans
(who argues that the effects-based approach fails to accommodate moral concerns), to those
such as J.P. Hunerwadel (who, while ultimately a supporter of the effects-based approach,
112
takes a much more reasoned and balanced view of what it is and is not, thereby countering
those who “worship at the altar of Effects”).
Peters captures a number of common criticisms of the effects-based approach,

including the contention that it is really nothing new. Rather, the effects-based approach is
merely the latest example of a “recurring American delusion – the notion that, if only we can
discover it, there must be a formula for winning wars on the cheap.”15 Peters also suggests,
as have many other critics of the effects-based approach, that warfare has always been about
achieving effects, thus countering the rather simplistic and difficult-to-accept argument that,
somehow, objective-based and effects-based operations are mutually exclusive. Finally, Peters
addresses the plethora of opinions and definitions of the effects-based approach and suggests
that if a concept cannot be clearly and simply defined or explained then it will not work.
In a 2006 presentation to a joint services conference, Challans addressed the moral

implications of adopting the effects-based approach. In the process, Challans presented an
insightful and sound critique of the effects-based approach from a scientific and theoretical
perspective, and contended that the effects-based approach “rests on several philosophical
mistakes – metaphysical, epistemological, and logical.”16 More specifically, Challans revealed
how proponents of the effects-based approach mistakenly contend “that something as
complex as human activity can be rendered and reduced and mutilated to fit the procrustean
bed of behaviourism, choking the mental realm into lifelessness with their chains of cause
and effect.” Challans suggests that the pseudo-science-informed hubris of strategy-makers
led to the conclusion that instituting democracy in Iraq was simply a matter of causality:
the action of regime change would result in the effect of a democratic, less threatening Iraq.
Further, Challans challenged the logic of the effects-based approach and its teleological
underpinnings, observing that “imposing telos into a so-called scientific process is to
misunderstand the whole enterprise of modern science.”17 Challans’ thought-provoking
work should give caution to any organization considering the adoption of an effects-based
approach, an approach he quite accurately describes as “pseudo-scientific and pseudo-
philosophical.”18
So, in light of the dozen or more definitions of the effects-based approach in

existence and the very polarized debate regarding its theoretical soundness and utility, how
does one move forward in an attempt to first determine exactly what the effects-based
approach is, and second, whether or not it is applicable to the practice of strategic art? The
short answer is: cautiously. The long answer involves a degree of selective consideration
(sorting through the noise associated with the many different versions and definitions), a
more detailed analysis of some of the different versions of the effects-based approach, and
an awareness of the potential pitfalls associated with adopting unsound emerging theories
and practices. While detailed discussion of individual definitions and approaches is beyond
the scope of this paper, the UK effects-based approach is discussed briefly below in order to
consider its utility as an enabler of strategic art.
The UK effects-based approach actually comprises three interrelated concepts: the

comprehensive approach, the effects-based approach, and the effects-based philosophy. The
emergence of these three concepts is a result of British analysis and reaction to the emerging
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Chapter 7
realities of the twenty-first century security environment and represents acknowledgement

of many of the challenges identified by Greer above. In particular, the UK effects-based
approach reflects an effort to come to grips with two prominent characteristics of the
contemporary operating environment: the complex adaptive nature of today’s security
challenges and the demand for a co-ordinated, broad, whole-of-government approach to
strategy formulation.19 Accordingly, the effectiveness of the UK approach and its potential
applicability to the practice of strategic art can be examined against these two characteristics.
UK Joint Discussion Note 4/05 “The Comprehensive Approach,” was a direct

response to the evolving international security environment of the post-Cold War era and
reflected the benefit of experience gained in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In short,
“The Comprehensive Approach” acknowledged the complex security challenges the UK faced
and more importantly, recognized the need for a comprehensive and collaborative approach
to applying the “3 (diplomatic, military and economic) national instruments of power”
to achieve the goals of national policy.20 Joint Doctrine Note 7/06 “Incorporating and
Extending the UK Military effects-based approach” built on “The Comprehensive Approach”
and established it as a cornerstone of the UK effects-based philosophy. Joint Doctrine Note
7/06 defined the UK effects-based approach and effects-based philosophy as follows:
Effects-Based Approach. The way of thinking and specific processes that,

together, enable both the integration and effectiveness of the military
contribution within a CA [Comprehensive Approach] (collaborative, i.e.,
integrated whole-of-government context) and the realization of strategic
outcomes.21
Effects-Based Philosophy. The UK effects-based philosophy recognises that

the military instrument needs to act in harmony with the diplomatic and
economic instruments of national power in taking a long-term view to ad-
dress both the underlying causes and the overt symptoms of a crisis.22
These largely underwhelming definitions suggest that there is nothing revolutionary

about the UK effects-based approach. Indeed, there is not. However, the degree to
which Joint Doctrine Note 7/06 incorporates the principle of the comprehensive and
collaborative approach throughout, suggests that the underlying intent is to inculcate the
“whole-of-government” approach as a response to the demand to think more broadly about
contemporary security challenges, both in terms of framing and understanding a problem
and in formulating strategy. In this regard, the UK effects-based approach is noteworthy and
potentially of great benefit to practitioners of strategic art.23
Unfortunately, the sections of Joint Doctrine Note 7/06 that deal with “The UK
Approach to Warfare” as well as “Planning” and “Execution” merely represent a repackaging
of the existing approaches to the conduct of these activities. Further, despite efforts of the
author(s) to assign mystical powers to the term “effects,” and attempts to convince the reader
that the “new” construct based on “thematic lines of operation” and “decisive conditions” is
somehow different and superior to the traditional “logical lines of operation” and “decisive
114
points” construct, it offers no substantial improvement over traditional approaches. Further,

it lends credence to those opponents of the effects-based approach who suggest that the
concept contains no new thought. In summary, the UK effects-based approach should be
lauded for its forthright efforts to institutionalize the “comprehensive approach” in response
to the demands of the contemporary operating environment. However, it falls short in
addressing the challenges posed by the complex adaptive systems environment that confronts
modern-day practitioners of strategic art, therefore suggesting that the effects-based approach
is of limited utility.
The intent of this paper is to contribute, in a very modest way, to the development
of strategic art. More specifically, this paper considers whether or not the effects-based
approach could enhance the practice of strategic art in light of the challenges posed by
the contemporary operating environment, and in particular, the demands associated with
functioning in a complex adaptive systems environment and the requirement to integrate, to
a new degree, all the instruments of national power.
In response to the first challenge, posed by the complex adaptive nature of the
contemporary security environment, the effects-based approach comes up short and offers
no improvement over existing methods. Indeed, despite the claims of effects-based approach
advocates who suggest that their approach views warfare as “a clash of complex adaptive
systems,”24 the responses to this first challenge are surprisingly linear, mechanistic and
teleological in nature. To suggest that talking “effects” (taking action to achieve an effect vice
taking action for action’s sake) is somehow the key to addressing the challenges of strategy
formulation in a complex adaptive environment is simply silly. There are other approaches
to confronting complex adaptive systems, such as the Israeli Defence Forces’ Systemic
Operational Design, that might offer greater potential and are certainly less “pseudo-
scientific” than the effects-based approach.
As demonstrated by the brief discussion of the UK approach above, the effects-based

approach has achieved far greater success and offers far greater potential for addressing the
second challenge associated with the contemporary operating environment, that of advancing
the whole-of-government or “3-D” approach. The UK’s “Comprehensive Approach” and
“Effects Based Philosophy” are quite forceful in this regard and serve as good examples
for practitioners of strategic art. Nevertheless, one should recognize that instituting a
comprehensive approach to broaden problem framing and strategy formulation as well as
improving interagency cooperation is not exclusive to the effects-based approach. Rather, it
could and should be pursued independently of a particular approach to warfare.
In the end, the effects-based approach (in whichever form or definition) does not
enhance the practice of strategic art. It is, in my opinion, no better or worse than existing
approaches, which should come as no surprise, for it is largely a repackaging of these same
approaches. Indeed, one could consider the development of the effects-based approach as
an exercise in “putting lipstick on a pig.” The Canadian Forces should, notwithstanding the
need for interoperability, therefore avoid being seduced by concepts like the effects-based
approach, and should instead invest efforts into the development of a viable alternative to
enable the practice of strategic art.
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Chapter 7
Notes
1. Dr. Tim Challans, “Emerging Doctrine and the Ethics of Warfare,” presentation to the Joint
Services Conference on Professional Ethics on Emerging Doctrine and the Ethics of Warfare, 2006. Available at
http://www.usafa.af.mil/jscope/JSCOPE06/Challans06.html. Accessed 6 Sep 2007.
2. Major-General Richard A. Chilcoat, “Strategic Art: The New Discipline for 21st Century Leaders”
in Joseph R. Cerami and James F. Holcomb, Jr, eds., The US Army War College Guide to Strategy, (Carlisle Bar-
racks, PA: US Army War College, 2001), 203. Available at http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/
display.cfm?PubID=362. Accessed 6 Sep 2007.
3. Arthur F. Lykke, Jr., “Toward an Understanding of Military Strategy” in Cerami and Holcomb,
eds., The US Army War College Guide to Strategy, 179.
4. Ibid., 179.
5. DND, Canadian Forces Operations, B-GJ-005-300/FP-000 (2004), p. 1-4.
6. Chilcoat, “Strategic Art,” for 21st Century Leaders” in Cerami and Holcomb, eds., The US Army
War College Guide to Strategy, 205.
7. James K. Greer, “Operational Art for the Objective Force,” Military Review 82, no. 5 (September/
October 2002), 26-27.
8. J.P. Hunderwadel, “The Effects Based Approach to Operations: Questions and Answers,” Air &
Space Power Journal 20, no. 1 (Spring 2006), 54.
9. Ibid., 54.
10. Steven D. Carey and Robyn S. Read, “Five Propositions Regarding Effects-Based Operations,”
Air & Space Power Journal 20, no. 1 (Spring 2006), 63-74.
11. Robert Vermaas, Future Perfect: Effects Based Operations Complexity and the Human Environ-
ment, Department of National Defence Canada, Operational Research Division, DOR (Joint) Research Note RN
2004/01, January 2004, 4.
12. Edward A. Smith, Effects Based Operations: Applying Network Centric Warfare in Peace, Crisis, and
War (Washington, DC: DoD Command and Control Research Program, 2002), 231.
13. Incorporating and Extending the UK Military Effects-Based Approach: Joint Doctrine Note 7/06,
(Swindon, UK: Ministry of Defence, 2006), p. 1-2.
14. Ralph Peters, “Bloodless Theories, Bloody Wars: Easy-Win Concepts Crumble in Combat,”
Armed Forces Journal 143, no. 9 (April 2006), 34-36. Available at http://www.armedforcesjournal.com. Accessed
17 December 2006.
15. Ibid.
16. Challans, “Emerging Doctrine and the Ethics of Warfare,” np.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. The Comprehensive Approach, Joint Doctrine Note 4/0, (Swindon, UK: Ministry of Defence)
2006, pp. 1-1 to 1-4.
20. Ibid., p. 1-1.
21. Incorporating and Extending the UK Military Effects-Based Approach, p. 1-3.
22. Ibid., p. 1-2.
116
23. This whole-of-government theme reflects similar views in Canada (the 3-D approach) and in the
US, where recent experiences in Iraq have underscored the requirement for coordinated whole-of-government
strategy and led to calls for a “Goldwater-Nichols for the interagency.”
24. Robert S. Dudney, “It’s the Effect, Stupid,” Air Force Magazine Online 89, no. 11 (Nov 2006).
Available at http://www.afa.org/magazine/nov2006/1106edit.asp. Accessed 21 December 2006.
117
Part V - Applying Effects-Based Approaches
The Canadian Land Force and Effects-Based Operations
Chapter 8
Robert H. Vokac
Introduction
During 2005 and 2006 I observed battle-staff training throughout the Canadian
Land Force (hereafter called the Canadian Army). The battle-staff training I observed was
conducted by all three formed brigade staffs and a handful of battalion/battle group/task
force headquarters, and was conducted in a simulation-supported environment. Additionally,
I supported numerous exercises for students attending the Army Operations Course
conducted by the Land Force Command and Staff College in Kingston, Ontario. Lastly,
I assisted in the design, development, and execution of the capstone land environmental
exercise for students attending the Command and Staff Course, now the Joint Command
and Staff Programme, conducted by the Canadian Forces College in Toronto, Ontario.
This paper’s aim is to describe, not to evaluate or assess, the use of effects-based
operations (EBO) within the Canadian Army by both formed staffs in the field and students
during professional military education (PME) exercises. There is no attempt made to describe
EBO as planned or executed during actual operations. Before describing selected aspects of
EBO as observed in the training environment, some historical and doctrinal background is
necessary.
Background
Effects-based operations, or EBO, has gradually found its way into the lexicon of
Canadian Army officers. As is often the case with new terms, it was and is used without a
common understanding amongst those employing the term. There are, as we have seen from
previous essays in this volume, numerous definitions of EBO. Within the Canadian Forces
(CF) there are some working definitions, or at least descriptions, of EBO. For example, a
draft Canadian Forces Strategic Operating Concept (dated 21 May 2004) describes EBO as:
…an effort to leverage the soft and hard power assets of a nation or coali-
tion, including its political, economic, technological, and social resources,
in order to achieve a set of desired outcomes. It seeks to establish influence
over the mind of an adversary to affect his will to act while, at the same
time, keeping collateral damage to a minimum.1
One can argue that the working definition above reflects status quo or that it is truly
revolutionary. Regardless of one’s opinion, it does provide an authoritative foundation on
which to further explore the concept.
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Not surprisingly, EBO, as a defined concept and philosophy, migrated north

from the United States military. While the general concept and philosophy migrated
north with sufficient robustness to ensure a place in Canadian lexicon, it did not appear
with an agreed upon application or employment methodology. Furthermore, the United
Kingdom and Australia, two prominent Canadian allies, developed their own versions
of EBO, pieces of which found their way to Canada. Current Canadian Army thinking,
as described by Director General Land Combat Development Draft Doctrinal Note
001/06, “An Effects Based Approach to Operations,” recognizes that the contemporary
operating environment has undergone significant change and, as such, “[t]o succeed in this
environment commanders must recognize that the military is but one instrument of power
available. A more comprehensive approach that co-ordinates the resources provided by a
range of individuals, groups and agencies will be required [emphasis added].” 2 An effects-
based approach, a maturation of the original military-centric EBO philosophy, implicitly
recognizes, therefore, that effects are best achieved using the full resources available to a
commander and to a government, the military instrument of power alone being insufficient
to achieve the effects necessary to reach the desired end-state. Consequently, an effects-based
approach, to be useful and relevant to the Canadian Army, should complement existing
doctrine.
Integration with Existing Doctrine

The Canadian Army is doctrinally based. As a guiding principle “[t]he Canadian
Army has adopted Manoeuvre Warfare as its doctrinal approach to warfighting.”3 The
objective of manoeuvre warfare is “[t]o defeat the enemy by shattering his moral and physical
cohesion, his ability to fight as an effective co-ordinated whole, rather than destroying
him physically through incremental attrition.”4 Manoeuvre warfare requires a command
philosophy that decentralizes decisions and fosters initiative. That command philosophy
is called “mission command,” which requires commanders to “tell subordinates what effect
they are to achieve and the reason why it needs achieving [emphasis added].”5 Therefore, an
effects-based approach appears to complement the doctrinal fundamentals articulated above.
Furthermore, a 2004 Canadian Army force employment document embraces EBO:
EBO is the natural extension of our departure from the attritional ap-
proach of attacking physical targets. It is a strategy that does not necessarily
depend upon physical force for attaining a desired outcome or effect on an
enemy…This will be accomplished by achieving a full range of effects, both
non-lethal and lethal…In sum, the focussed use of national assets, indepen-
dently or as part of a coalition, will produce cascading, systemic effects as
the tactical, operational and strategic levels.6
Accordingly, EBO appears to fit within the concepts of an army defined by

manoeuvre warfare and mission command. While, at the time of the writing of this essay,
EBO, or an effects-based approach, had yet to make its appearance in approved Canadian
Army doctrine, it has reached a receptive training audience. The EBO-related training
122
observations noted below provide an anecdotal look at the current state of EBO within the
Canadian Army.
Training Observations
Formation and unit commanders, and those who role-play formation and unit
commanders, adhere to the principles of manoeuvre warfare and mission command.
Moreover, commanders who so choose, supplement the assigned mission and commander’s
intent by describing desired effects. Given the increasing complexity of planning as one
moves from sub-unit, to unit, to formation level, an effects-based planning approach,
within a training environment, appears to work better at higher levels. This is because it
is at the higher levels that the resources necessary to implement an effects-based approach
exist. It is at formation or higher where the need to integrate and synchronize efforts with
other elements of national power is brought to the fore. However, while the overall utility
of an effects-based approach is quite clear at the formation level, there are times when the
approach seems “forced” at lower levels.
Senior commanders often choose to emphasize an effects-based approach

during training exercises. This, of course, tends to focus the senior staff and subordinate
commanders on this approach and is typically accompanied by operational-level language
such as “end-state” and “objectives.” The top-down emphasis on an effects-based approach,
if not properly tempered by experienced subordinate commanders and staff has, at times,
led to confusion and planning inefficiencies. Suddenly, the casual observer sees all command
levels swirling about, attempting to define their own effects while concurrently losing the
important linkage that connects subordinate activities (tasks) to the achievement of higher
effects.
Another observation related to using the effects-based approach during training

exercises is that almost all exercises do an excellent job replicating the physical domain, but
are much less successful replicating the moral or cognitive domain. Physical activities are
typically manifested in exercises by direct effects, in that the effects are usually immediate
and easily recognizable. While physical activities in the operational world may generate
indirect effects (those removed in time or purpose from the initial activity), the typical
exercise rewards physical activities (e.g., kinetic attack), while virtually ignoring those
activities directed at the moral and cognitive levels. Therefore, while an effects-based
approach is often planned, its execution is virtually impossible to simulate. And yet, even
effects-based planning is hard to replicate given the inherent difficulties in developing
relevant measures of effectiveness. One senior commander, for example, mentioned that he
thinks of effects in terms of weeks, months, years, and even generations. If one accepts his
view, how is this reality effectively translated into the exercise environment?
Well, for all practical purposes, it isn’t. Commanders and staff are comfortable
visualizing the effects produced by physical activities, and to a large degree this comfort
zone is a product of their own experience and the experience of their mentors. For example,
experienced commanders and directing staff (DS) have, over time, developed the “critical
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eye” necessary to evaluate and assess a plan or order to determine its probability of success.
This “critical eye” wavers ever so slightly when evaluating or assessing a plan emphasizing
a sophisticated effects-based approach. Why? Clearly, it is easier for commanders, DS, and
exercise controllers to assess and evaluate a potential force-on-force engagement than to assess
and evaluate the effects of, for example, psychological operations directed against an enemy
commander.
One way of overcoming the limitations of using the effects-based approach during
training exercises is to incorporate outside participants, specifically non-military participants,
because an EBA to operations is “predicated on a sound understanding of the battlespace and
the actors within it.”7 Therefore, sophisticated training scenarios with a wide range of actors
allow for a more comprehensive (i.e., effects-based) planning approach by commanders and
staff. The best exercises recognize the requirement to take into account other instruments of
national power, the stated and unstated agendas of other government departments (OGDs),
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and international organizations (IOs), and the
requirement to achieve a whole-of-government approach. To be clear, the need to work with
others (OGDs in particular), the need to integrate and synchronize military actions with the
efforts of other actors, and the recognition that the achievement of required effects requires
more than a purely military solution, begins with the participation of a wide variety of actors
in complex, demanding, and innovative scenarios.
A final observation related to using the effects-based approach during training

exercises is that commanders typically emphasize the necessity to minimize so-called
collateral damage. This is prudent guidance as commanders and staff recognize that collateral
damage, no matter how it is caused, creates a negative effect, one that can significantly hinder
the execution of an effects-based operation. However, within the training environment, this
guidance is often emphasized to the point that force is not applied even when permissible,
hence increasing the risk to the friendly forces. Using force is a delicate balancing act that
requires difficult decisions, and it may be that the difficulties surrounding these decisions
could be more accurately portrayed in exercises.
Conclusion
The Canadian Army’s evolving draft doctrine on an effects-based approach to
operations reflects the reality of the contemporary operating environment, which resists
simple solutions to difficult problems resident within a complex environment. Gone are
the days when the proper application of the military instrument of power was sufficient to
achieve the desired end state.
An effects-based approach to operations requires that commanders and their staffs

exhibit a sound understanding of the battlespace. Knowledge requirements are greater than
ever as it is virtually impossible to plan or execute an effects-based approach to operations
without understanding the existing linkages and relationships resident amongst all the actors
in the battlespace. Knowledge of the complete battlespace environment allows a commander
124
and staff, knowing the desired end state, to properly identify objectives, identify the effects
required to achieve the objectives, and select those activities required to create the effects.
An effects-based approach to operations is consistent with existing doctrine and

does not appear, at this point, to be a revolutionary approach to the planning and conduct
of operations. And it is in the training environment, through the design of demanding and
complex scenarios, that our current and future commanders and staff will learn to maximize
all resources available to them.
Notes
1. DND, Canadian Forces Strategic Operating Concept, draft 4.4. (dated 21 May 2004), 17.
2. DND, Director General Land Combat Development Draft Doctrinal Note 001/06, “An Effects
Based Approach to Operations,” 3.
3. Canada, Department of National Defence, Land Force Command, B-GL-300-003/FP-000 (dated
21 July 1996), 27.
4. Ibid., 28.
5. Ibid., 30.
6. DND, Purpose Defined: The Force Employment Concept for the Army - One Army One Team One
Vision, (np, 31 March 2004), 38-9.
7. Canada, Land Force, Draft Doctrinal Note 001/06, “An Effects Based Approach to Operations,” 8.
125
Chapter 9
Chapter 9
Effects-Based Professional Military Education
Colonel Randall Wakelam
Introduction
As the title of this essay might suggest, the following paragraphs examine where
the study of effects-based operations would seem best situated within the continuum of
professional military education (PME). The other possible interpretation of the title would
have us look for the most effective options for PME. Indeed, the paper attempts both tasks,
first situating the current construct of the effects-based approach to operations (EBAO)
described elsewhere in this volume with like elements of military studies, and then examining
how such studies are best conducted. In so doing, it considers a number of approaches to
PME that have been proposed or used by the Canadian military over the past 70 years. It
comes to the conclusion that some of the previous education strategies may well serve the
purpose of helping the profession understand and build upon the effects-based philosophy.
EBAO: Education – and a Bit of Training

If we start by accepting—as postulated elsewhere in this volume—that the
maturity and precision of the EBAO concept is such that it falls more into the category of
a philosophy of war than that of a technique to be learned, mastered and employed, then it
is reasonable to say that EBAO should be studied using education, not training practices.
Education, it has been widely accepted, allows the student to develop intellectual skills
– critical thinking, creativity, and the like – which in turn allow the individual to come up
with reasoned solutions to unanticipated problems. Training, on the other hand, permits
an individual to respond in a predictable way to anticipated conditions.1 Given the still-
evolving nature of EBAO, an education-based approach, one which permits and encourages
debate about the essence and validity of various new and old notions, is definitely the more
suitable method of studying EBAO for the time being.
This is to say, that should the philosophy become concept, and the concept lead
to doctrine and procedure, it could eventually be appropriate to include EBAO practices
in a range of PME courses and programmes which concentrate on practical issues. It has
been shown that EBAO is likely to be practiced at the higher levels of military and security
operations. If EBAO becomes a practice, it should be taught primarily at the operational
and high tactical levels; that is, in staff and war college programs, or Development Periods 3
and 4 (to use Canadian Forces terminology). This is not to say that EBAO doctrine should
not be introduced, at least in passing, to officers and senior non-commissioned members
attending tactical-level courses, but this would be done more so to allow them to know that
the concept exists than to allow them to become practitioners of EBAO.
126
EBAO – Two Versions of Learning

Learning about the first version of EBAO – that which Colonel Jim Cottingham
portrays at the operational level of war2 – would take place in what is termed in Canada
as Development Period 3. This period encompasses professional education for majors/
lieutenant-commanders and lieutenant-colonels/commanders, and focusses on the use of
military forces at this level of war. These linkages seem to make good sense, for it is at the
staff college that officers are given the time to find their way through philosophies of war,
and also to develop their understanding of the operational level of war and campaigning.
Lectures and seminars on philosophers of war already examine such theoreticians as Sun Tzu
and Clausewitz, as well as the early and contemporary air power thinkers.3 In particular, the
current Command and Staff program taught at the Canadian Forces College gives students
ample opportunity to test the relevance of operational-level concepts through the Master of
Defence Studies thesis.
At the same time that they learn to test theories and concepts, students taking
this program are also taught how to use the Canadian Forces operational planning process
(CFOPP), which is the primary planning tool used by the CF to design campaigns and
major operations. The process already includes such EBAO-related elements as information
operations and command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance
and reconnaissance (C4ISR), and it is not hard to envisage teaching the contribution of
EBAO to the campaigning process as described in Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Magee’s
chapter in this volume. At the same time, however, students on this course are introduced
to the notion that military solutions are not always kinetic and not always appropriate
by themselves to the resolution of security concerns. The Command and Staff program
therefore contains curriculum, which deals with the contributions of other government
departments and NGOs, and major tabletop exercises include peace support and domestic
operations scenarios that do not involve force-on-force solutions.
An even greater opportunity to test the concept of EBAO and to explore the
possibilities of linkages between version one and version two presents itself in the form
of the Advanced Military Studies Program, which is designed for more senior officers
(generally colonels/captains (navy) or officers destined for those ranks) who are likely to find
themselves either commanding at higher tactical or operational levels, or acting as senior
planners in operational- and strategic-level headquarters.4 This program of study affords
additional opportunities to practice campaigning concepts and techniques, this time from
the perspective of a commander, while more importantly providing opportunities for more
rigorous analysis and evaluation of warfare philosophies, concepts and doctrines. It is during
this program that many students begin to display a mastery of the profession of arms that
one would expect of its senior practitioners. Here, too, students consider effects-based
solutions to problems and work with civilian analysts during tabletop exercises.
Programs of study focussed on the second version of EBAO fall clearly in the
category of the war and defence colleges – these being learning institutions that look beyond
the application of kinetic solutions in resolving security problems. (This is not to say
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Chapter 9
that the previous programs are only about “warfighting,” but their emphasis has been and
currently remains the study of the use of military forces.) Senior colleges, at least in the
Commonwealth, also tend to focus on “all of government” examinations of national and
international concerns. Student bodies are frequently a mix of domestic and foreign military
officers (usually senior colonels/captains (navy) and flag officers who are likely to find
themselves working in national and/or strategic headquarters), public service executives, and
occasionally senior private-sector executives.
Currently, Canada’s senior program is the six-month National Security Studies

Program, while there is also the two-week Canadian Security Studies Program that provides a
rapid tour d’horizon of national security issues. This shorter program, formerly known as the
National Security Studies Seminar, tends to attract a wide range of participants. However,
since its inception in 1998, the longer course has experienced difficulty attracting officers
from other countries, as well as Canadian public service and senior private sector executives.
This latter problem may have been unique to the past decade and may now be changing
given the Canadian government’s renewed interest in national and international security. If
so, future program focus and student enrolment may fall more in line with past practice.
All of Government Professional Education in the Twentieth Century

Prior to the Second World War, Canada sent selected senior officers to Britain for
both staff and war college education. At the senior level, Britain operated the Imperial
Defence College (IDC), now called the Royal College of Defence Studies, which looked at
defence issues, but from a broader perspective than just the use of military courses of action.
The experience of one Canadian officer, General Maurice Pope, in the late 1930s is indicative
of the value of this sort of programme. He found himself “in the company of senior sailors,
soldiers, airmen and civil servants, enjoying the rare privilege of studying the strategy, as well
as the wider aspects of defence of the British Commonwealth and Empire.” While he went
on to say that studies focussed on “hypothetical wars,” he also noted that: “In these studies
I was much struck by the attention paid to the economic side of warfare….Wars, in our
day, had considerably overrun the comparatively narrow province of the professional sailor,
soldier, or airman.”5 Particular studies during the program included the formulation of a
framework for imperial defence including the parsing of defence and security responsibilities
for Britain’s global alliances as well as the associated resource issues. In another case,
students were to turn their criticism of the contemporary British foreign policy into viable
alternatives. Students were sent away in syndicates and given two weeks to prepare their
alternative policies. Pope’s group sought to expand the Treaty of Locarno in order to stop
Hitler by a “superior show of force.”6 Thwarting the Nazi regime through a show of force
rather than a kinetic campaign can easily be qualified as an effects-based solution, which
implicated the most senior levels of government. In this case in particular, the IDC was
clearly focussing its learning on what Cottingham calls “version-two effects.”
With the coming of peace in 1945, Canada established its own war college. Opened
in 1949, the National Defence College (NDC) at Kingston originally was intended to be
a joint warfare program that would seek to maintain the hard-won knowledge about joint
128
service operations. When the college did open its doors it had morphed into a Canadian
version of the IDC. Until it closed in 1995, the college’s curriculum looked at a wide range
of international strategic and security issues: culture, economy, politics, and security and
defence. Students spent much time visiting all the major regions of the globe and reflecting
on what they had seen. The student body comprised not only a mixture of Canadian
military officers and their NATO and Commonwealth counterparts, but also a significant
number of senior public servants. This was very much an all-of-government program
looking at the complexity of state, regional, and global interconnections.
All-of-government education was also a prominent component of a seminal study

into officer professional development commissioned in the late 1960s by General Jean
Victor Allard, first Chief of the Defence Staff of the newly-unified Canadian Forces. Allard
tasked Major-General Roger Rowley to examine the nature of the unified officer corps and
to define the professional education needs and mechanisms that would ensure that officers
were adequately educated for the challenges of the day. As part of his education continuum,
Rowley proposed the establishment of a National Security College (NSC) as a replacement
for the NDC. While the NDC had a number of shortcomings related to student selection
and assessment, Rowley did underscore its strength: “the [NDC’s] chief virtue is its
interdepartmental approach to national security issues.”7 And he continued:
The National Security Course would build on this strength.

The National security college [sic] should not be designed solely to meet the
needs of military officers. It should serve all departments of government
and other civil sectors that contribute significantly to national security. It
should have within it a research group that would analyse national security
problems, and should, in the process, assist in maintaining a suitable orien-
tation in the teaching programme of the National security college.8
Rowley’s study team further emphasized that the NSC would contribute to the
development of a military-executive ability within the senior leadership of the profession:
Military-executive ability implies a knowledge of the nation in which the

force is raised, paid for and equipped; and of the international environment
in which force must be applied or its application threatened. It involves a
knowledge of the context in which the officer will apply his executive abil-
ity and military expertise and give his advice to government. It includes
economic, political, sociological, ideological, scientific and technological, as
well as military factors.9
In other words, the NSC was intended as a capstone in formal PME that would
give a senior leader the knowledge and mindset to operate effectively in developing all of
government effects-based solutions to complex security challenges.
Ultimately Rowley’s NSC was not established, but much of his thinking was
applied to the NDC. The deputy commandant of the college was an ambassadorial-
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Chapter 9
level appointment from the Department of External Affairs, and a Centre for National
Security Studies was established to conduct government-level research into security issues.10
Therefore, Rowley’s intention that the program be “interdepartmental in terms of staff [and
students], but DND administered,” was largely met.11
Effects-Based PME for the Twenty-First Century

Since 2001 and the realization that national security is more than just a defence
matter, the public service in Canada has been more focussed on looking for all of
government strategies both domestically and internationally. The currently favoured defence,
diplomacy, development and trade (3D+T) is an example of this approach. It was applied
in 2006 in Afghanistan, but as the recently returned Canadian commander of the Multi-
National Brigade (Regional Command South) has said, this approach needs to be taught and
understood in senior professional programs.12 He has perhaps said this because the all-of-
government approach taught in Western war colleges in the twentieth century has not been
as effectively taught in Canada for the past decade. But, just as the requirement is being
identified “in the field” by people such as Fraser, so too, in recent months, the interest in the
National Security Studies Program by senior bureaucrats and by the federal public service
as a whole is seemingly on the rise. At the time of the writing of this essay, public service
enrolment for the 2007 National Security Studies Program was up from one student to four
and Canada’s Department of National Defence had mandated that all of its executives at
the EX-2 level and above would attend the two-week Canadian Security Studies Program,
as well as the one-week Executive Leadership Program, normally attended only by newly
promoted brigadier generals and commodores.13 At the same time as there has been a move
towards civilian attendance on military programs, senior officers have been participating,
admittedly in small numbers, in graduate-level education. Arguably, the most avant-garde
example of the latter was the selection in 2003 of Major-General Mike Ward, currently
Chief of Force Development, to attend the Yale World Fellowship.14 All of this suggests that
the mechanisms for learning about all of government solutions for security problems may
soon return to the relatively effective delivery systems of the past – a sort of effects-based
education for version two effects-based approaches to security.
Conclusion
In the preceding discussion we have seen that the mechanisms for the study of
effects-based approaches to operations already exist within the domain of professional
military education. Ample opportunity exists, as it has for many years, to look at the
implications of classical and emerging philosophies of security and defence stratagems, as
they apply both at the warfighting and all-of-government levels. Where theory becomes
practice, the military education and training continuum has the necessary processes in
place to design and conduct the appropriate learning activities. If we accept for a moment
the premise that there is nothing fundamentally new about effects-based approaches to
operations, then we need also to recognize that the current professional education system—
while relatively young by comparison to the profession of arms—has the flexibility and the
inclusiveness to deal with this and other concepts which emerge from time to time. While
130
there are those who would quip that military education, like the much-reviled military
intelligence, represents an oxymoron, there is much to be said for an education system that
prepares members of the profession to seek all possible solutions for the challenges of the new
defence and security environment.
Notes
1. This construct has been attributed to BGen (Ret’d) Don Macnamara, a long time member of the
faculties of the Canadian Forces College and the now-closed National Defence College. Macnamara indicates
that the concept was one that predates him and believes that it may have its origins with the US Marine Corps.
Email from Macnamara to Wakelam dated 27 August 2007. See also Canada, Department of National Defence,
“Final Report of the Officer Development Review Board” (Ottawa: DND, 15 September 1995), xiv, xvi.
2. Colonel J.F. Cottingham, “Effects-Based Operations: An Evolving Revolution,” unpublished
paper written as part of the MA in War Studies program, Royal Military College of Canada, July 2004, 40.
3. The syllabus for the Joint Command and Staff Programme (formerly the Command and Staff
Course) of the Canadian Forces College can be found at http://www.cfc.forces.gc.ca/DP3/CSC_Syllabus/cfc300-
34_e.pdf. Accessed 7 Sep 2007. Also available from this site are the syllabi of the other programmes described in
this chapter.
4. These senior positions would range from Chief of Staff through the principal planning appoint-
ments – J3, J5, and J7.
5. Maurice Pope, Soldiers and Politicians, The Memoirs of Lt.-Gen. Maurice A. Pope (Toronto: Uni-
versity of Toronto Press, 1962), 98.
6. Pope, Soldiers and Politicians, 101-2.
7. Canada, Department of National Defence, Report of the Officer Development Board, Vol. 1(Ot-
tawa: DND, 1969), 85.
8. Ibid., 99.
9. Ibid., 40.
10. See Randall Wakelam, “Officer Professional Education in the Canadian Forces and the Rowley
Report, 1969,” Historical Studies in Education/Revue d’histoire de l’éducation 16, 2 (2004), 287-314.
11. Report of the Officer Development Board, Vol. 2, 259.
12. BGen David Fraser, Presentation to the Advanced Military Studies Program at the Canadian
Forces College, 6 December 2006.
13. Email from Senior Staff Officer Professional Development, HQ Canadian Defence Academy, to
Wakelam, dated 28 August 2007. The ELP is a short workshop to prepare executives for appointments in stra-
tegic-level positions dealing with security and defence.
14. Yale World Fellows Program, 2003 Yale World Fellows. Available at http://www.yale.edu/world-
fellows/fellows/alum_2003.html. Accessed 15 December 2006.
131
Chapter 10
Chapter 10
A Bridge Too Far?: The Theory and Practice of the
Effects-Based Concept and the
Multinational Interagency Role1
Conflict is no longer limited to linear battlefronts and mass manoeuvre. As clearly

demonstrated during recent events in Afghanistan and Iraq, the historic focus on achieving
military superiority at the operational or tactical levels would be better seen as perfunctory
steps towards the achievement of strategic military, economic, diplomatic and developmental
aims.2 Increasingly, conflict has become more akin to a complex and adaptive system that
operates within and between the progressively challenging environments of war, terrorism,
peace support operations, and regime change. Conflict has shifted from being primarily a
mechanically linear system in which military powers smash away at each other until one is
far too bloodied to continue. It has become a system of fluid, increasingly adaptive and often
unpredictable situations in which specialized, usually multinational, armed forces function
alongside civilians in order to achieve shared and desired tactical and systemic effects that
lead to a shared strategic aim. Operations to attend to such threats will, therefore, require an
equally adaptive approach.3
In multinational Effects-Based Planning (EBP), success relies on being able to

identify the desired and achievable strategic endstates that might inform campaign planning
and the deployment of the optimum mix of civilian and military capabilities with which to
achieve a range of long- and short-term effects. Therefore, future multinational operations
will include complementary diplomatic measures such as sanctions, financial incentives, and
trade-offs, as well as military measures, like the deployment of an infantry brigade, a wing of
aircraft or a squadron of ships. Alternatively, effects-based actions may include the military
option at a level equal to or greater than the use of developmental aid and reconstruction
assistance. The challenge for the effects-based concept lies with the integration, or
“bridging,” of such efforts externally between coalition partners and internally by large,
institutionally independent military and civilian levels of government. But is this “bridging”
feasible? Today, in several states, a military “defensive” capability is but one component of a
multi-dimensional principle of statecraft that includes diplomacy, defence, and development.
In Canada, this is known as the interagency 3-D policy.4 But can such principles translate
into action? This paper explores the effects-based concept within the context of the
Multinational Experiment (MNE) series, and specifically analyses the interagency “role”
under the Coalition Interagency Coordination Group (CIACG) as it contributed towards an
experimental EBP cycle.
132
A Bridge Too Far?
What is the Effects-Based Concept?

In order to properly understand the effects-based concept, it is important to begin
with taxonomy. There are several characterizations of the effects-based concept and of its
“operationalized” form, effects-based operations (EBO). One definition states that EBO be
considered as a process for obtaining a desired outcome or effect from an adversary, friendly,
or neutral through the synergistic and cumulative application of military and non-military
capabilities at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels.5 Other definitions consider EBO
as operations conceived, planned, and executed within a systems framework that considers
the full range of direct, indirect, and additional cascading effects that may be achieved by
the application of political, military, diplomatic, or psychological instruments.6 There are, to
date, no less than two-dozen definitions of EBO. In order to encapsulate and refine some of
the key concepts in these definitions, the following definition of EBO is proposed:
Operations designed to influence the long- or short-term state of a system

through the achievement of desired physical or psychological effects.
Operational objectives are sought to achieve directed policy aims using the
integrated application of all applicable instruments of hard or soft power.
Desired effects, and the actions required to achieve them, are concurrently
and reactively planned, executed, assessed (and potentially adapted) within a
complex and adaptive system.7
This definition notwithstanding, the effects-based concept is still immature,

and while EBP has demonstrated some potential, it has not yet progressed to a mature
experimentation or prototype phase.8 Prototyping the EBP concept will require the
maturation of the appropriate theoretical and analytical framework, both of which consider
conflict as a holistic spectrum of political, military, economic, social, legal and ethical, and
infrastructure and information segments. This framework and associated methodologies will
enable decision makers to plan for operations more effectively, and then to adapt plans as
situations evolve. That said, future operations that reflect the principles of the effects-based
approach (EBA) will, by their very nature, require political and military leadership to both
anticipate and understand the consequences of actions. Ultimately, decision makers will
require a framework that integrates processes that link strategic aims to operational effects,
effects to networks and nodal relationships, actions to resources and organizational mandates
and accountabilities, resources to the appropriate actions required to achieve the desired
effect(s), and resources to supporting processes and capabilities.
In order to achieve a long-term strategic aim, effects-based operational planners must

develop a better appreciation of increasingly complex human networks and the dependency
linkages that connect communities of interest, as shown in Figure 10-1. They also require
a highly sophisticated understanding of culture and the human values of time and space, as
well as a multidimensional analysis of primary, secondary, and follow-on actionable “nodes,”
“targets,” networks, or dependency relationships between nodes, that are to be influenced
during the course of operations.9
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Chapter 10
Social and Cultural

Vulnerabilities Dependencies
National Intel
Agencies
Political Economic Physical
Academia Multi-National
Strengths
Services Corporations
Legal, Ethical Scientific
and Moral and Technical
Commerce/ Weaknesses Relationships
Treasury Military
Figure 10-1.10 Networks and Linkages Connecting Communities of Interest
Theoretically, an operational net assessment (ONA) for EBO requires inputs from
a wide range of political, economic, social, intelligence, technological, and infrastructure
specialists in order to make an assessment of strengths and vulnerabilities within a “system of
systems.” The weaknesses and vulnerabilities within the system are then exploited to induce
effects.
It is worth underscoring that EBOs are outcome-focussed and involve a broad range
of activities, of which military action is only a subset. For example, if a state or coalition has
as one of its strategic aims the establishment of a democratic regime within a failed state,
there may be an infinite or permutated number of possible actions and resources available
to produce the necessary desired effects, including diplomatic, developmental, international
organization (IO), intergovernmental organization (IGO), and non-governmental
organizations (NGO) ways and means.11 Unfortunately, as will be seen below, conventional
military planning staff have made little more than superficial gestures to incorporate the
so-called “other” instruments of power into multinational planning and command and
control (C2) processes. Moreover, few attempts have been made to integrate these levels
of influence into a prototypical effects-based operational headquarters. It is imperative that
planners think rigorously about how best to synchronize and orchestrate effects, and about
the proposed actions and resources needed to achieve the desired effects. This process
involves a strong, transparent civilian and military information-sharing and knowledge-
management process that reacts to the potential propagation of effects. However, if EBO
are to include the combined direct and indirect use of any means at the nation’s disposal,
applied in a synergistic manner, in order to elicit a desired strategic outcome based on the
achievement of cumulative effects, then there is a long way to go before operationalization of the
concept is complete.
EBO, MNE 3 and the Interagency Role

Background. The evolving international security environment and subsequent
changing role of armed forces is an essential backdrop to our discussion. Understanding this
134
A Bridge Too Far?
environment is key to the effective civil-military implementation of effects-based planning

and execution. This understanding also reflects the desire to move away from the traditional
realist view of war as a tool of state, to the desire to view conflict’s entirety (pre-crisis, crisis,
and post-crisis) inclusive of a civil-military domain. There are historical precedents that
demonstrate the shift in civil-military relationships. For example, during and immediately
following the first Gulf War, there was a marked shift in civil-military relationships. This
shift was most evident during operations under the UN flag in Cambodia and the former
Yugoslavia, and the NATO war in Kosovo. Peacekeeping operations emerged from the
new security environment of the post-Cold War era reflecting these new demands and new
challenges. Between 1989 and 1999 there were well over 40 instances of UN-sponsored
intervention around the globe.12 Significantly, during this period, not only did multinational
missions multiply, but they were complex, innovative, and multi-levelled.
The Centre for Defence Studies at King’s College London recently identified five
communities whose participation is critical to the successful resolution of future international
crises. These are, in no particular order: donor governments, armed forces, multilateral
agencies, NGOs, and private industry.13 As the ONA concept has demonstrated, this list
might benefit from the addition of academia and national and international intelligence
agencies, as these communities have become significant players in the pursuit of regional and
global stability through trend analysis and indicator measurement. However, this union of
several seemingly disparate players has had a long and turbulent history. As Mike Duffield
argues, in adapting to the new security environment of the post-Cold War era, each of these
communities was, in turn, driven to revisit fresh issues such as how and in what manner
they would be involved in multinational military operations. This acclimatization to new
geopolitical realities underwent several iterations, impacting organization, process, and,
above all, policy. In the 1990s, the integration of development and security, along with the
privatization of these responsibilities gradually produced more effective ways and means to
achieve a common objective. Parties that were autonomous throughout the Cold War era
now found new forms of “synergy, overlap and mutual interest.”14 However, the question
remains as to whether this integration can translate effectively to a transformational EBP
concept and doctrine.
EBP Experimentation. The following sections will explore the integration of

military and non-military organizations (NMOs) in the conduct of EBP and operations,
and they will introduce Multinational Experiment 3 as a case study on coalition EBP.
The analysis is critical, but it is not intended to denigrate the efficacy of multinational
experimentation as it relates to the EBA; on the contrary, it is designed to explore gaps in our
collective understanding of what components are required for the practical application of the
conceptual issues related to the EBA, and to explore avenues for further exploration.
Multinational representation and association with US Joint Forces Command

(USJFCOM) has expanded since its inception. From the outset, the joint experimentation
plan at USJFCOM was intended to provide the transformation framework for
interservice (and multinational) conceptual, experimentation, and doctrinal development,
interoperability, and integration. The USJFCOM Joint Experimentation Directorate (J9)
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Chapter 10
thus sought (and still seeks) to envisage, develop, explore, test and then validate twenty-first
century warfighting concepts such as rapid decisive operations (RDO), ONA and the effects-
based concepts of EBP and EBO. These concepts are seen as transformational, driving both
thought and technology, with prior civil-military demarcations less visible. Furthermore, the
experimentation process sought (and still seeks) to provide a way to ensure that the US and
its allies could operate effectively and interoperably in the complex security environment of
the future. To this end, J9 has initiated several experiments since 2001. At the time of the
writing of this essay, there were four scheduled transformational multinational experiment
series events that include the Multinational Interoperability Council (MIC) nations. The
first, LOE 1 (November 2001), investigated coalition military planning. The second, LOE
2 (February 2002), explored the development of the ONA. MNE 3 will be discussed below
and MNE 4 was scheduled to occur in 2006.
Multinational Experiment 3. A US-directed and US-sponsored exploratory

experiment, Multinational Experiment 3 attempted to examine the processes, organization(s)
and technologies required for an ad hoc coalition to plan an EBO within a representative
complex system. The third in a series of four experiments related to coalition planning,
information sharing and the EBA, MNE 3 was a “virtual” (i.e., internationally dispersed yet
technologically networked) experiment on a series of sub-concepts under the general mantle
of EBP. These “sub-concepts” included, amongst many others, the CIACG in the EBP
process, a construct designed, in part, to explore the necessary co-ordination and integration
of the defence and development communities.
The US experiment design team intentionally opted to explore the EBP concept
within the construct of a Coalition Task Force Headquarters (CTFHQ), which mirrored
the US Standing Joint Forces Headquarters (SJFHQ) organizational structure. There were
several persuasive, and some not so persuasive, reasons for the inclusion of the SJFHQ
component into the experiment design. The most important for this discussion, however,
was that it afforded the six MIC participants (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, United
Kingdom, United States), as well as the nascent NATO Response Force the opportunity to
observe and evaluate the efficacy of the US SJFHQ (and CTFHQ) C2 prototype within
an experimental EBP framework. It also offered USJFCOM proponents the opportunity
to observe the multinational reception of the SJFHQ core element within a controlled and
documented experiment.
The experiment operated within a collaborative information environment (CIE).

The CIE involves: the establishment of a multinational information sharing domain,
hardware and software tools enabling information exchange across a classified network,
and a, thus far, relatively immature knowledge management process that would allow for
the posting and exchanging of relevant operational information. MNE 3 was successful
in providing the CIE medium by which national planners could share information whilst
refining the EBP process and drawing on information within an ONA database in order to
plan operations.
The SJFHQ construct, or core element, is now entering the prototype phase in
the US. The model consists of a small team of operational planners (about 60 people) and
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A Bridge Too Far?
information command and control specialists attached to and complementing a regional

combatant command (RCC) headquarters.15 These specialists form the core for the joint task
force (JTF) command structure.16 The construct envisages four specialist teams (Knowledge
Management, Plans, Operations, Information Superiority) working collaboratively towards
the development of an operational EBP for the commander. Although guided and
commanded by the JTF Commander (or in the case of MNE 3, a Coalition Task Force
Commander), the four specialist teams are detached from the traditional hierarchical C2
relationship in order to provide the Commander with fully comprehensive operational
plans. In early 2005, the SJFHQ construct was to be fielded, augmenting several RCCs by
developing pre-crises knowledge bases and providing guidance.
The SJFHQ is expected to provide each US geographic commander with an

informed C2 capability and enhanced appreciation of the operational environment,
therefore facilitating a more efficient ONA and EBP process capable of delivering “a rapid,
decisive operation.”17 Theoretically, the expertise provided by the SJFHQ affords the
commander better pre-crisis planning, more timely situational awareness, and a more holistic
understanding of the operational “system of systems” that would thereby enable decision
superiority. Using the CIE (or some comparable portal), the SJFHQ is expected to develop
and maintain knowledge of the crisis environment through the establishment of habitual
working relationships with interagency coleagues. In practical—or at least in experimental—
terms, the hopes for a coalition-friendly SJFHQ construct are equally high. The experiment
design for MNE 3 envisaged each national participant being involved (or in some cases
embedded) in the SJFHQ experiment equivalent, which was a CTFHQ.
Perhaps the most ambitious assertion by proponents of the construct is that it will
inherently maintain “established habitual relationships through the combatant commanders
to the interagency community.”18 Presumably, the reasons for this maintenance of
relationships are several. The most important is the recognition that it is necessary to aid the
headquarters in making appropriate decisions based on a more holistic understanding of the
crisis or pre-crisis environment as an adaptive system, and more significantly, in the longer
term, on a more strategic understanding of the potential cascading effects that may occur at
the operational level.
Non-Military Organizations, the CIACG and MNE 3. At the outset, the

injection of a functional interagency planning group into the experiment design for MNE
3 was considered a fundamental conceptual priority.19 This group would help to integrate,
co-ordinate, and facilitate military and non-military components in the development of
effects-based plans. It was also essential for validation of the effects-based concept at its most
holistic level.
The CIACG “sub-concept” was incorporated into the design and play of MNE 3
and, as it turned out, CIACG was one of the more stimulating aspects to be played. The
CIACG construct had its genesis in USJFCOM discussion papers and concept evaluations
related to the SJFHQ, although each national participant presented issues related to its
own historical understanding of the multinational interagency approach to pre-crisis and
crisis decision making. But for USJFCOM, the construct originated as a quasi-integrated,
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although unfortunately not integral, advisory facility for the commander and planners in
the course of campaign planning. Known as the Joint Interagency Coordination Group
(JIACG), the concept aimed to “establish operational connections between civilian and
military departments and agencies that will improve planning and co-ordination within
the government.” At the national—or JIACG—level, the group was envisaged as a “multi-
functional, advisory element that represents the civilian departments and agencies and
facilitates information sharing across the interagency community.”20 In sum, it was expected
to serve as a liaison between civilian and military actors and to support the SJFHQ planners
by advising on civilian agency operations and plans. It was also to provide a so-called “third-
party” perspective on civilian agency approaches, capabilities and limitations that would
inform the development of an EBA and enable the co-ordination of national instruments
of power. Presumably, when a JTF is formed and deployed, a JIACG would extend this
support to the commander’s staff through the joint forces headquarters political-military
planning staff. This would then become the mechanism to optimize planning and ensure
the best use of capabilities to achieve the desired effects that would include the range of
Diplomatic, Informational, Military and Economic (DIME) interagency activities, which
was the conceptual basis for the CIACG.
Throughout 2002 and 2003, the issue of disjointed operational planning amongst
agencies was addressed through the US Joint Chiefs of Staff initiative, which was designed
to establish a JIACG directorate for crisis intervention within the regional combatant
command headquarters. In hindsight, prior to implementation, the JIACG concept
would have benefited from further refinement at the national level, but also—ideally—at
the multinational level. Granted, this concept is breaking new ground, and, at the date of
writing, no model exists to help with its development. Moreover, no coherent operational
planning structure exists that is multi-agency in nature or that extends planning and co-
ordination into the multilateral spheres that are involved in complex crisis response and
action. The attempt to address this challenge within MNE 3 through the inclusion of the
JIACG concept was, therefore, sensible and timely.
The JIACG concept was also expanded to include civilian agency representatives
of the participating coalition countries. In accordance with the concept of operations
(CONOPS), the emergent CIACG was to focus on coordinating and harmonizing
operational planning between the coalition military planners and the relevant civilian
agencies or departments of their respective governments.21 Thus, in both theory and practice,
any difficulties envisaged for the establishment of a national interagency model were now
magnified.
Afghanistan in 2003-2005 provided the experimental scenario for MNE 3. The

scenario included, in its pre-experiment stages, a United Nations request for Coalition Task
Force (CTF) intervention in order to stabilize a volatile situation in southern Afghanistan.
Experiment injects posited that MNE 3 players should establish a CTFHQ that was
prepared to conduct a pre-crisis EBP procedure in co-ordination with a CIACG. The CTF
was to proceed though specific, although conceptual, EBP steps, culminating in an effects
tasking order (ETO). The ETO would flow from and reflect the previous steps in the EBP
process and would outline the effects-based ways and means to enable the EBO.
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A Bridge Too Far?
Theoretically, the steps of the EBP process replicate the operational “steps” required
to perform EBP within a “real world” coalition environment, as shown in Figure 10-2.
The process begins with the CTF gaining an understanding of the strategic context, aims
and direction. This understanding emerges from the operational-level Focussed ONA,
which incorporates national and multinational information and intelligence related to
the environment (in the case of MNE 3 it was Afghanistan). Collation, in turn, enriches
the analysis and contributes to derivation of a multinational appreciation of threats and
opportunities. During MNE 3, this was replicated in slow time (i.e., the experiment steps
were designated into specific time slots). The CTFHQ would then proceed through a
series of EBP steps towards producing an ETO. In MNE 3, these steps were replicated,
with limited success.22 What is particularly significant for our purposes was the “role” of
the CIACG. The MNE 3 multinational EBP CONOPS clearly underscored the relative
importance of the CIACG in the EBP process and particularly in the penultimate steps.23
However, the experiment also highlighted the conceptual frailties of the concept itself.
EBP Process (MNE 3)
Strategic Aim
OGDs
Strategic Strategic Objectives for Other
Instruments of Government
NGOs
Multinational Objectives Agencies
Information CIACG
N D ER`S IN T E
M MA NT
CO
Action Risk Effects

Assessment Matrix
National
ONA Effects
Assessment
Commander’s
Guidance
Commander`s Mission Focused

Initial Guidance Analysis PEL
ONA
Baseline
ONA Focused Wargaming
ONA COA
Assessment
Effects
Synchronization
Coalition Commander’s
ONA Decision
Strategic
ETO Operational
Actions
Figure 10-2. The EBP process steps for MNE 3
The CTF participants were to proceed through the operational steps (right side) in
order to consider the appropriate effects, nodes, actions, and resources that would sufficiently
enable the coalition strategic aim. This process was to include several points where assistance,
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guidance, or advice could be offered by the CIACG, although this was not successfully
achieved.
MNE 3 and the CIACG: More Questions than Answers. MNE 3 confirmed that
the CIACG is an evolving and potentially useful concept in need of further refinement. If
anything, the CIACG piece in MNE 3 highlighted the requirement to integrate, co-ordinate
and facilitate the activities and capabilities of multinational military, and other organizations
and agencies, with those of the CTF. It also highlighted the necessity to incorporate
military and non-military perspectives, sensitivities, and support requirements and, insofar
as possible, to reconcile competing demands. Indeed, the CONOPS for MNE 3 suggested
aspirations for a more holistic crisis planning process than had previously been the case in
multinational operations with a military strategic bias, and these expectations were given a
greater weighting by the choice of the Afghan stability operation scenario.
Still, portions of the CIACG CONOPS for MNE 3 reflected inconsistencies

attributable to its genesis in national concept development and this affected the experimental
EBP process. At first glance, the CIACG appeared to emulate the role of the US JIACG
for the Regional Combatant Commander. For a national commitment, and a US national
commitment in particular, this approach may have been satisfactory. However, MNE 3
was specifically designed as a discovery experiment relating to a coalition planning process.
During play, it became clear that the role of CIACG was more complicated and its links to
the CTFHQ more intricate than the US-derived complement, the JIACG.
Conceptually, EBP prescribes a level of adaptability that mitigates some of the

complexities of conflict. These complexities necessitate a dynamic EBP process, requiring a
cognitive shift from linear, or sequential, plans and operations, to adaptive and distributed
plans and operations to keep pace with (if not anticipate) both contextual changes and the
tempo of operations. The CIACG is not yet a mature “enabling” concept, so there is a
natural tendency for the CIACG (and its several multinational components) to react strongly
to immediate military circumstances in order to better define its own relationship with the
CTF (i.e., as planner, guide, liaison, or some other relationship). At this stage of conceptual
development, a more rigourous review and analysis of CIACG integration into CTFHQ
activities may be required. On one level, the CIACG provided liaison between OGDs,
IOs, IGOs, and the CTFHQ; on another level the CIACG offered specific guidance to the
CTF Commander during phases of the EBP process; and at yet another level, the CIACG
provided planning and assistance though subject matter experts (SMEs). This latter “role”
was perhaps the most contentious one during the experiment. The specific issue was: at what
stage does a multinational interagency group limit its “co-ordination” activities to those of
advice rather than assistance? Perhaps non-military organization and interagency roles need
refinement for each CTF contingency. However, core functions should be identified in
common doctrine with the assumption that additional functions could be added as required.
Other questions to emerge from the experiment were: should some or all
multinational military commands and non-military organizations (NMOs) be fully
integrated into the CTFHQ to provide EBP advice and/or contingency options? If
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A Bridge Too Far?
only some are selected, what criteria should be used in selecting representation? Should
multinational NMOs always be present during CTF planning phases in order to provide
“another” perspective, external advice, and expert guidance on the probabilities of cascading
effects, and therefore, on the success of the mission?
During MNE 3, it became obvious that a CIACG was required to operate at a much
higher level than anticipated - both strategically and temporally. This was not appreciated
in either the EBP or the SJFHQ CONOPS. Similar to interactions associated with Allison’s
organizational process model, the CIACG perceived itself as a conduit, or as a translator or
champion of higher strategic objectives.24 This being the case, the CIACG felt particularly
responsible for developing perspectives on how best to achieve the desired strategic end-states
for the coalition. Discussion and debate often ensued regarding the direction and longevity
of the stability operation. For example, was it to end after a sixty-day combat operation or
was it to include developmental activities, humanitarian efforts, and the so-called “soft”
objectives that may take years to achieve? Prior to and during stability operations, such
issues are routinely considered by NMOs; however, during EBP and EBO, any uncertainty as
to civil-military options and end-states may actually be counterproductive. For example, the
decision to avoid the pursuit of immediate combat tactical effects because they might damage
physical infrastructure, may actually preclude their use as “enabling effects” requisite for long-
term “soft” operational and strategic aims, such as stability.
Finally, a concept that integrates multinational military organizations and NMOs

in a construct such as the CIACG, presumably reflects the values of the nation or nations
that develop it. National, cultural, sociological, organizational, and even psychological issues
will be reflected in the composition, roles, and proposed actions of the CIACG. This is a
delicate balancing act, particularly at the multinational level. If the CIACG is to be a truly
coalition construct, and therefore a reflection of many national and international interagency
relationships combined, then there is a need for a rigorous examination of these relationships
prior to further experimentation.
The Effects-Based Concept, NMOs, and MNE 3 –

Conceptual Observations
The EBP process, as theoretically conceived and as developed for MNE 3, requires
the establishment of a coalition military and NMO group for planning effects-based
operations, but future concept development and refinement is required. The CIACG
played a considerable role in MNE 3. Indeed, the experiment design and process steps were
augmented throughout the two-week experiment to reflect the increasing import of the
CIACG sub-concept. The impact of the CIACG on EBP was most apparent during the
following process steps, as illustrated earlier in Figure 10-2:
1. Commander’s Initial Guidance – the aim of the CIACG was to provide specific
advice to the CTF Commander in order to frame the Commander’s guidance in
acceptable terms for multinational NMO and interagency sensitivities and co-
ordination. This is an important insight (albeit somewhat contrived, given the
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artificiality of the experiment). One conclusion drawn from the experiment’s

CIACG After Action Report was that integration of the CIACG in all plan-
ning developments should be initiated prior to the outset of the EBP process.
There should be a clear role established for the CIACG and a clear relationship
to the Commander outlined in full. How this is to be achieved requires further
investigation.
2. Effects Assessment, Actions Assessment, and Priority Effects List (PEL) – the CIACG
played an active role in the assessment phases. During these phases CTFHQ
planners consider what effects would prove most valuable and what actions
would be required to enable these desired effects. The CIACG played an inte-
gral part in establishing the causal links and weighing the relative priority of one
effect and/or action over another. This sort of injection is essential to 3-D policy
projection and the integration of DIME instruments by posing these questions:
Why kill when you can create? Alternatively, why aid when you can degrade,
damage, or depose? These questions are critical to the conduct of EBP and EBO
in a complex environment, yet they are not easily resolved without some associ-
ated risk.
3. Wargaming/Course of Action/Synchronization – Ideally, these steps would require

active co-ordination and reach-back through the CIACG, which was not suc-
cessfully achieved during MNE 3. In order to maximize the synchronization of
effects, however, CIACG subject matter expert (SME) input is critical. Ef-
fect “blowback,” or at least the consideration of probable cascading effects and
unwanted or unintended effects, can only be determined with CIACG involve-
ment in the planning process.
If the effects-based concept is to prove practicable, the CTF (and the coalition)
must appreciate fully the status and authority of each associate member of the interagency
group assigned to it. In practice, it may be that governments choose to issue their
members credentials formally outlining their authority bounds - within the CTF and
between members of the CTF. Similarly, suitable arrangements are required to ensure that
accountability for CIACG actions is commensurate with its allocated role. Military and
NMO injects into a CTFHQ are essential; equally, they too must be held accountable for
their input to planning decisions.
The MNE 3 CIACG was designed in part to stimulate thought and to act as a
catalyst for effects-based dialogue and knowledge management. It was envisaged that the
CIACG should, and would eventually, assume the same sort of role with respect to non-
official entities (e.g., NGOs and the media), which are major sources of information and
influence in theatre. This role is, however, a sticking point, because in a volatile military
theatre, perceptions of overt NMO influence on military operations may seriously cripple
command and control relationships. On the other hand, perceptions of military influence
on IOs and NGOs operating in theatre for long-term developmental planning must also be
avoided. During MNE 3, this relationship was strained several times, an issue that remains
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A Bridge Too Far?
to be addressed.
In a complex conflict environment, multinational military and NMO roles are

likely to remain situationally dependent, and the ad hoc nature of the CIACG offers both
advantages and disadvantages. Clearly, coalition civil-military and interagency co-ordination
mechanisms for regions frequently in crisis will be further developed and better maintained
than arising areas of interest that are not frequently in crisis; therefore, NMO roles will
need to be clarified for each operation. However, emergent, minimum core functions could
be entrenched in common doctrine with the assumption that additional functions could
be added as required. In this regard, several national MNE 3 CIACG After Action Reports
tabled options regarding the role of the CIACG.
In MNE 3, the CIACG role was designed to meet experimental demands for EBP
that do not envisage NMO control and/or direction over a stability operation. Indeed, the
US concept developers for the MNE 3 CIACG construct have stated that the primary role of
a CIACG is to provide civilian advice and subject matter expertise to the CTF Commander
and effects-based planners regarding civilian agency operational-level activities during the
planning stages of an operation. Naturally, this advisory role could evolve over time, as
requirements and circumstances demand. This begs the question: at what point in the EBP
and execution process is the decision made to forego routine multinational civil-military
liaison in favour of a CIACG complement?
Several issues regarding roles remain unanswered and require exploration within the
context of the effects-based concept:
1. What should the operating relationships be like between the interagency or

NMO group(s) and their respective national governments? Is there such a
thing as one CIACG that operates within, or amongst, the CTFHQ? Should it
maintain the higher (strategic) level of interest? If so, how should this translate
to the operational level? How best are communities of interest represented,
established, and sustained?
2. Assuming that there is an agreed upon end, ways, and means strategy for EBO
between the civil-military actors, what ethical issues need consideration? Clear-
ly, should an NMO lead group be tasked as liaison between CTF and NGOs,
IGOs, and IOs in the area of concentration, there is the potential for an ethical
dilemma. At what point does the NMO lead group risk precipitating a conflict
of interest when it acts as a conduit between humanitarian and relief organiza-
tions and the armed forces tasked by the Commander to pursue tactical effects?
Does the NMO lead group recommend and then co-ordinate relief and human-
itarian activities under the helm of the CTF? Presumably not.
3. What, then, should the composition of a CTF interagency, or NMO, group

look like? During MNE 3, several debates on the composition of the CIACG
were initiated. Clearly, civilian SMEs should be involved in EBP, and for MNE
3 they were chosen from a wide range of OGDs, foreign offices, and depart-
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ments of state. However, inclusion of members for the purposes of “human

intelligence” from IGOs and NGOs may also be necessary in practice. As men-
tioned above, this raises both practical and ethical challenges. Where and how
does one receive, evaluate, and use expert advice in an area of concern? How
can immediate tactical, and possibly physical, effects be reconciled with long-
term strategic, and possibly psychological, end-states?
Finally, if NMOs are expected to make a strong contribution to the development

of the EBA, then a strong, identifiable civilian champion is needed for whatever form the
interagency group takes. This leader would presumably come from the lead nation, although
there is a strong argument to be made that this leader should come from another coalition
nation to provide greater legitimacy.
The discussion above implies some balance to effects-based decision making:
1. The relative value of the NMO group is greatly increased if members can readily
reach back to national networks. This is not easily accomplished, however, as
current security and information-sharing practices may preclude secure national
communications systems from operating in both the NMO and CTF area.
2. During operations, it may be appropriate to transfer CTF subordinate leads

from military to civilian command. Conceptually, an effects-based operation
will eventually require the transition of authority to a civilian lead. Effects, if
properly chosen, will require a civilian administration to ensure any action taken
is directed properly and considers all humanitarian, social, economic, and politi-
cal cascading effects.
3. Should EBP be restricted to focussing on a military objective, it is recommend-

ed that a military liaison officer be posted as a permanent member of the generic
NMO co-ordination group, or the CIACG.
The following points challenge the extant SJFHQ (or CTFHQ) model and open for
discussion the proposed civil-military EBO C2 structure illustrated below in Figure 10-3:
1. Analysis of MNE 3 suggests that concept development and experimentation

efforts recognize and accept the primacy of coalitions as the most probable
paradigm within which nations may participate. These efforts should there-
fore explore alternative C2 processes and organizations, some of which include
the injection of a truly multinational NMO into the EBP planning structure.
Should a CTF be required, a complementary co-ordinated multinational NMO,
or Interagency Command Group, should be available to provide strategic and
operational advice (not guidance) to the CTF Commander. To adapt to each
contingency, the composition of this Command Group should be ad hoc;
however, members could be national representatives at the ambassadorial level
chosen by their respective states. This approach has recently been explored by
US Pacific Command.25
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A Bridge Too Far?
2. The CTF Commander could be augmented by a civilian equivalent, capable of

serving to achieve the strategic objective through an effects-based plan, and pro-
viding the military commander with rational and objective advice and planning
guidance. This civilian would not provide military operational advice; rather he
or she would provide guidance on the area of operations; operations and coali-
tion unity of effort; diplomatic and interagency feedback to contingent nations;
and NMO liaison services.
3. An NMO liaison would act between the deputy commander and the four col-
laborative subject-matter areas in order to provide feedback to the Interagency
Command Group, as well as to maintain the fluidity of options available to the
SJFHQ.
4. Each of the four SJFHQ areas would also have one NMO liaison to provide
input to help ensure that strategic objectives are being met when effects-based
planning has been initiated
Commander
+ Civilian
Deputy
Command
COS
HQ J1 to Ops Plans IS KM NMO

Staff Team Team Team Team
Integrated Integrated NMO Integrated
Logistics
Figure 10-3. A Proposed CTFHQ Conceptual Organization
It is based on the more holistic inclusion of multinational Military and NMO,

and interagency components. Each of the four pillars, Operations, Plans, Information
Superiority and Knowledge Management, are augmented by an NMO liaison; there is an
added NMO component attached to the Information Superiority cell; there is a distinctly
separate NMO component for advice to the CTFHQ; and most importantly, there is a
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civilian equivalent to the CTF Commander embedded within the command chain, which
may act as guide, liaison to civilian agency counterparts, or advisor.
Most importantly, in addition to the points raised above, there would be a non-
military advice chain provided to the Information Superiority cell of the SJFHQ. There
are several reasons for providing this non-military advice chain. First, NMO input is not
only critical when information on an area of interest or operation is collected, collated, and
assessed, but it is also essential for the maintenance of a fluid and adaptive information
assessment. Second, prior to the initiation of operational planning, this NMO cell would
be required to assist in the exploitation of information from the assessment through to the
development of an operational (military) campaign plan. Third, this cell would provide
advice and guidance on proposed follow-on effects and the avoidance of unwanted and
unintended social, developmental, legal, economic, and governance effects.
The construct in Figure 10-3 is presented for review and comment. It is not
intended to supplant any effort to promote the current SJFHQ prototype; however, it is
intended to provide a more holistic representation of what positions might be necessary for
an ad hoc coalition task force headquarters, should it be necessary to develop and plan for a
multi-disciplinary effects-based operation.
Conclusions and Challenges

The above discussion on the theoretical requirements for interagency participation
in EBO, as well as experimental observations on coalition EBP, have provided some support
to the notion that future effects-based processes and structures will utilize both military and
non-military organizational components. Indeed, strategic and operational errors may result
from the failure to integrate, or at the very least, co-ordinate military, non-military and
interagency roles, perspectives and obligations.
Evidence thus far has indicated that in the days and months following the Coalition
military invasion of Iraq, actions were not driven by an interagency effects-based plan
that might have included a civil-military, outcome-based mission analysis; effects and
action assessment; and effects-based course-of-action requirements. There was also scant
attention paid to potential cascading short- and long-term effects, or what has been termed
“blowback,” that might result from crushing military force.26 One suspects that there was
little integrated civil-military thought given to the Iraqi theatre as being a complex adaptive
system of systems with interacting nodal behaviour. As experienced at the experimental
level, there was little practical evidence of the inclusion of non-military organizations in
the operational decision making processes and organizations that cultivated the war in
Iraq.27 Indeed, months before the invasion, Office of the Secretary of Defense and Pentagon
planning staff repeatedly dismissed interagency efforts to prepare plans for the combat and
post-conflict phases in Iraq. Advice from the US Agency for International Development
(USAID) and several other NGOs was rebuffed along with advice from more traditional
government bodies such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the National War College.
The interagency Iraq Working Group, hastily formed to explore post-war reconstruction
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A Bridge Too Far?
and social efforts, was successively resisted by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, because, the Group was told, “the President has already
spent an hour on the humanitarian issues.”28 As Dayton Maxwell, Special Advisor to the
Administrator of USAID and former advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority, has
recently claimed, in the context of the Global War on Terror, non-military organizations have
been largely absent from the planning and execution of events.29
At the beginning of military operations in Iraq, there were over 80 non-military

organizations operating alongside thousands of military personnel from several nations. Five
independent groups formed the Joint NGO Emergency Preparedness Initiative (JNEPI)
to serve as a “command post” for NGOs.30 JNEPI activities were focussed and adaptable
to include everything from planning, pre-positioning of equipment and supplies, to co-
ordination and information sharing. A significant source of funding for JNEPI was USAID;
however, one of the five JNEPI groups, the International Medical Corps, warned its members
and other NGOs to avoid the appearance of being “with the occupiers.”31
Combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, while tactically successful, appear to

have been temporally short-sighted.32 In some way they have suffered what some civil-
military professionals have termed “the tyranny of the immediate,” in which short-term
tactical gains are sought over the more difficult long-term end-states.33 During the Global
War on Terror and the subsequent war in Iraq, the symbiosis between military- and NMO-
outcome planning diminished. Why this occurred has yet to be sufficiently analysed and
is beyond the scope of this study; suffice it to say that civil-military planning by regional
combatant commands may, in fact, be anathema to very conceptual pillars of the effects-
based concept and its interagency “role.” Furthermore, this form of military governance by
regional combatant commands does not translate easily to coalition partners.34
These operational challenges mirror those identified during MNE 3, and raise
the question, at what point do NMOs and military organizations agree that cooperation
and collaboration might be more effective at producing a shared, desired operational effect
than segregation of effort and disagreement? Or, at what point do NMOs and military
organizations agree that collaboration is, instead, not applicable at all and that unity of effort
would be tantamount to an ethical dilemma, especially for the NMOs? This is an important
ethical issue that cannot be resolved here. There is, however, a compelling need for effects-
based planners, both civilian and military, to consider these questions. Alternatively, there
are arguments for recommending that regional combatant commands include liaison with
the NMO community and vice versa. This idea parallels some of the recommendations
made earlier in Figure 10-3, as well as examples explored within the Pacific Command
Multinational Planning Augmentation Team on-line “exercises.” This team focusses on
short-term planning for operations other than war, and includes test-case multinational crisis
planning efforts with NGOs and ad hoc civil-military networks.35
Presumably, the end-state of an effects-based plan is one that is holistic in all

respects, one that promotes the integration and realization of the 3-D principle. That being
the case, effects-based operational planners must resolve the failures in communication and
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co-ordination that might jeopardize the achievement of shared strategic outcomes; however,
there are, as yet, few effective means (or the desire) to communicate through the EBP
process. The addition of liaison personnel, specific to the tasks (or end states), could enable
a faster and more effective transition to a stable post-conflict environment. The opportunity
for co-ordination through liaisons should not, however, infer control.
The “interventionist years” of the immediate post-Cold War era were notable for
the widespread inclusion of developmental, social, and humanitarian affairs into defence
policy, not to mention the widespread inclusion of security issues in the planning stages of
regional development and reconstruction efforts. This phenomenon may provide us with
some guidance as we refine the effects-based concept. It is now generally accepted that
international organizations and national or international OGDs should be made aware of
conflict and its effects, and they should be party to the pursuit of objectives designed to
promote regional and global security.
Based on results from MNE 3 and consideration of the past, present, and future
security environments, this paper contends that national and international NMOs and
interagency partners should be directly involved in the operational planning and execution
stages of a coalition effects-based effort. IOs and NGOs need to be aware of the potential
effects of military intervention, and, if possible, align their capabilities and efforts towards
stability, development and resolution. Ironically, the ultimate outcome of intervention, then,
would be to avert future violence and post-conflict instability.36 These sentiments are well
expressed in the policy statements of several leading IOs, UN agencies, non-partisan think-
tanks, NGOs and financial institutions.37 Indeed, NMOs have expanded their mandates
to include working directly with national and international armed forces. Following recent
events in Afghanistan and Iraq, there have been strong calls within the US legislature for
the establishment of a civilian reconstruction service to work closely with military elements
towards an effects-based operational objective. Ideally, this work would occur within an
integrated strategic planning environment that takes into consideration conflict and post-
conflict planning sources; however, this form of planning cell requires more study and
experimentation prior to implementation.38
Conflict is complex in nature and armed forces must adapt to the environments
with which they are faced. Security and stability operations today require concepts,
processes and tools that have never before been considered. The diverse means used by
some to perpetuate conflict (e.g., child soldiers, eco-terrorism, computers, weapons of mass
effect, and terror against civilians) implies that in order to address these means, one must
be prepared to explore all necessary ways to stop the propagation of conflict, including the
integration of civilian and military roles, functions and processes. Threats can emanate
from anywhere and the armed forces tasked to address them collect intelligence from
civilians; deliver humanitarian aid; protect NGOs; and eliminate the threats’ funding
sources. At the same time, armed forces can be killing and protecting, destroying and
rebuilding. Information and intelligence to aid armed forces in these tasks comes from
a variety of indicators, including population, religion, economic spending, and resource
allocation. Obscure indicators such as the cost of weapons, the price of brides, and the
nature of tribal blessings can also foreshadow conflict. The sources of knowledge about these
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A Bridge Too Far?
indicators, or nodes, are most assuredly not the armed forces, but NMOs and interagency
partners. Finally, generic civil-military training by itself is not enough to give armed forces
the necessary awareness of cultural, social, and economic issues or how to optimize the
capabilities of NMOs and OGDs in understanding these issues. MNE 3 highlighted the
fact that these areas require legitimate “bridging” between civilian and military values and
perspectives before implementation of the effects-based concept is possible.
Notes
1. This essay was originally published in David Carment and Martin Rudner, eds., Peacekeeping
Intelligence: New Players, Extended Boundaries (London: Routledge, 2006), 188-209.
2. The threat of asymmetric retaliation and guerrilla warfare (slowly) persuaded Coalition forces to
re-assess strategic options in Iraq in the spring of 2003. See for example E. L. Andrews and P. E. Tyler, “As Iraqis’
Disaffection Grows, U.S. Offers Them a Greater Political Role,” New York Times (7 June 2003), p. A8.
3. R. Grossman-Vermaas, Action Group 10 Operational Briefing (Dalhgren, VA: The Technical
Cooperation Program (TTCP) Joint Systems Analysis Group, Joint Warfare Analysis Center, 29 April 2004).
4. The 3-D approach is endorsed by the Department of National Defence, the Department of
Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the Canadian International Development Agency, (i.e., the defence,
diplomacy and development sectors of the Canadian government bureaucracy). See the CIDA website at www.
canada-afghanistan.gc.ca/menu-en.asp. Accessed 15 July 2004.
5. US J9 Experimentation, US Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM), working definition, 2002. See
also draft of “Effects-based Planning concept for Multinational Experiment 3,” (August 2003) which is a joint
concept agreed to by the UK Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre (JDCC), the Canadian Forces Experimentation
Centre (CFEC), the German Bundeswehr, France, NATO ACT, the Australian Defence Science and Technology
Organisation (DSTO), and US Joint Forces Command.
6. P.K. Davis, Effects-Based Operations: A Grand Challenge for the Analytical Community, RAND
MR-1477-USJFCOM/AF, 2001 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001).
Environment,” DOR (Joint) Research Note RN 2004/01, Operational Research Division, Department of
National Defence, January 2004, which appears as Chapter 3 in this volume.
8. It should be noted that while the EBO concept requires further refinement, there are a number
of multinational and Canadian initiatives in place that are investigating the “sub-concepts” involved in the
effects-based approach. Canada has been involved in the conceptual development, analysis, technological
development, experiment design, and participatory phases of Limited Objective Experiment II (LOE II) and
Multinational Experiment III (MNE III). The former experiment was conducted in February 2002 and addressed
multinational information sharing in “real-time” over a secure collaborative information environment (CIE) and
the development of a multinational ONA database. The latter, which took place in February 2003, explored
the technological, organizational and process requirements for multinational Effects-based Planning (EBP) and
coalition development of a robust ONA database. MNE 4 was scheduled for the spring of 2006 and was planned
as an experiment on the conduct of an effects-based operation in a stability operation environment.
9. S. Guastello, Chaos, Catastrophe, and Human Affairs: Application of Nonlinear Dynamics to Work,
Organizations, and Social Evolution (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1995); and R. D. Smith, “The
Inapplicability of Principle: What Chaos Means for Social Science,” Behavioral Science 40 (1995), 22.
10. Figure from USJFCOM, Rock Drill Draft, Concept of Operations for Multinational Experiment 3, 3
Nov 2003.
11. An example of an IO is the United Nations; an example of an IGO is the Association of South
East Asian Nations (ASEAN); an example of an NGO is Amnesty International. The distinctions between an IO
and an IGO are sometimes blurred.
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Chapter 10
12. W. Durch, UN Peacekeeping, American Policy, and the Uncivil Wars of the 1990s (London:
Macmillan, 1997); and L. Freedman, Military Intervention in European Conflicts (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994).
13. K. von Hippel, Democracy by Force: US Military Intervention of the post-Cold War World
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); and M. Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars
(London: Zed Books, 2001).
14. Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars, 52.
15. The RCC construct is unique to US C2 structure. In future, this anomaly may create difficulties
for multinational partners who wish to integrate into the SJFHQ construct.
16. United States Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM), Standing Joint Forces Headquarters (2003).
Available at www.jfcom.mil/about/fact_sjfhq.htm. Accessed 24 Mar 2004.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. USJFCOM, MNE 3 Experiment Directive, Version 2.6 (2003).
20. Ibid.
21. USJFCOM, “Improving Cooperation Among US and Coalition Military and Civilian
Operational Planners in Crisis Intervention,” in Draft Combined Inter-agency Coordination Group (CIACG)
Concept of Operation for MNE 3, Revision 1.1, dated 4 Sep 2003.
22. The analysis for MNE 3 was released in two forms: a Canadian national contingent report and a
full USJFCOM report. Both are unclassified.
23. USJFCOM, MNE 3 Experiment Directive.
24. G. T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York: Little, Brown
and Co., 1971), 4-5, 10-11.
25. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Coalition Warfare: Coordination and Planning
Options, Draft NATO White Paper (2003).
26. C. Johnson, Blowback (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2000).
27. J. Fallows, “Blind into Baghdad,” The Atlantic Monthly 293, no. 1 (Jan-Feb 2004), 52-74.
28. Ibid., 69.
29. D. Maxwell, Keynote Address to the NATO ACT/USJFCOM CD&E annual conference, 3
November 2004.
30. NATO, Coalition Warfare: Coordination and Planning Options.
31. International Medical Corps (IMC), “Press Release,” dated 12 Mar 2003. Available at www.imc-
la.com. Accessed 24 Mar 2004.
32. L. Diamond, “What Went Wrong in Iraq?” Foreign Affairs 9, no. 10 (2004), 34-56; and “The
Right Plan for Iraq,” The Economist (25 September 2004), 13.
33. D. Maxwell, Keynote Address to the NATO ACT/USJFCOM CD&E annual conference.
34. As of mid-2004, there were some indications from within the US DoD recognizing the need for
further changes to its “way of war.” See K. Costa, “Pentagon Kicks off Effort to Re-examine the Basic Principles
of War,” Inside the Pentagon (1 July 2004), 1; and T. Ricks, “US Army Changed by Iraq, but for Better or Worse?”
Washington Post (6 July 2004), p. A10.
35. Multinational Planning Augmentation Team (MPAT) (2004). Available at www2.apan-info.
net/mpat. Accessed 7 November 2004.
36. R. Read, Address to the NATO ACT/USJFCOM CD&E annual conference, 3 November 2004.
37. These, for example, include the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the
European Union, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations High
Commission for Refugees, and the Carnegie Commission.
38. D. Maxwell, Keynote Address to the NATO ACT/USJFCOM CD&E annual conference.
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Part VI - Concluding Material
Concluding Remarks from the Editors
Chapter 11
As noted at the beginning of this volume, there are currently three major theoretical
approaches that dominate analyses and descriptions of military operations: Operational
Art, network-centric warfare (or network-enabled operations in the Canadian context), and
effects-based operations. While the concept of EBO is having a significant influence on the
other concepts, as well as how operations are conceptualized today, there are many variants of
EBO and each alternative has been shaped by national and organizational cultures. Because
of the importance of the concept of EBO today, this volume has presented some aspects of
Canadian approaches to EBO so that we might get a clearer picture of what this concept
means in a Canadian context.
Descriptions and accounts of approaches to EBO are emerging through discussions

and papers within Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) and jointly with
other players in the Department of National Defence (DND); however, there are many ways
of describing EBO in the literature and in practice. In order to fully understand the nature of
EBO today and how it might evolve in the future, it is vital to understand the theoretical and
historical origins of this subject, as well as how EBO is conceptualized and practiced by the
Canadian Forces (CF). Since there has been no comprehensive examination of these concepts
in a Canadian context, the Command Effectiveness and Behaviour Section at DRDC
Toronto co-sponsored, with the Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare Centre (CFAWC), a
two-day workshop, held in November 2006, to identify issues related to EBO and to begin
to establish an agenda for better understanding EBO. The proceedings of the workshop
documented the origins, context, and various aspects of EBO taken from Canadian
experience with EBO. This summary of the proceedings and other Canadian writings on
EBO attempts to capture the diversity of current Canadian views on EBO as a first step
towards achieving a more comprehensive and integrated Canadian approach to EBO.
Because of the immaturity of the concept of EBO and its continually evolving nature, no
attempt was made here to reconcile differences among viewpoints. Rather the differences are
presented so that readers can get a better idea of how effects-based terminology is currently
being used by Canadians.
This final chapter, based on the works that appear in this volume, summarizes the
following viewpoints related to aspects of EBO: origins, concepts and context; Canadian
perspectives from the EBO workshop; assessing effects-based approaches; and applying
effects-based approaches.
Origins, Concepts and Context

A key resource for the workshop was the essay, reproduced above, by Colonel Jim
Cottingham, commanding officer of the CFAWC, which described in detail the evolution
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of EBO.1 He concluded that there are two versions of EBO, one that seeks success in armed
conflict and one that seeks success in a much broader application. The earliest notions of
EBO are quite old, but in a modern context date to First World War aerial bombing. The
central idea in this first version of EBO is that there is a better, cheaper, and in the long run,
a more humane way of winning than to wage the long drawn out land and sea campaigns
that characterized much of twentieth-century warfare. Up until the 1990s, however, the
means to implement this idea in practice did not exist, and it was really not until the Persian
Gulf War (or first Gulf War) 1990-91 that the potential of this version of EBO was realized
when it was mated with new technology in the form of stealth and precision weaponry.
Based on the promising results of aerial bombardment during the first Gulf War, US Air
Force General David Deptula declared that this new approach to fighting represented a
fundamental change in the nature of war and coined the term “effects-based operations” to
describe it.
This optimism was dampened by the character of the post-Cold War security
environment at the beginning of the twenty-first century when conventional military
operations were not seen to be as effective as hoped in bringing long term peace and stability
to troubled regions of the world. In this context, EBO, as it was originally conceived, was
perceived to be a less revolutionary concept than its advocates claimed. This perceived failure
of the first version of EBO to resolve complex security problems gave rise to the second
main version of EBO, which is intended to broaden the application of EBO into areas other
than armed conflict between nations. Cottingham argues that this second version of EBO
is evolutionary and has been built on the original thinking that shaped the development of
airpower theory, plus other ideas, to create a new way of thinking about how to manage the
attainment of national objectives in peace and in war. He characterizes this second version of
EBO as going beyond just using military force to achieve national objectives by employing
a holistic approach to achieve them. However, he concludes that, like the first version of
EBO prior to the 1990s, this second version of EBO must wait for the development of new
concepts and technologies to be effective.
Other aspects of EBO were examined in another workshop resource, the essay by
Robert Grossman-Vermaas, a Canadian defence scientist, which explored concepts related to
the developing theory of the effects-based approach (EBA) and examined how EBO could
be applied to strategic and operational planning processes and to the implementation of
plans devised by these processes.2 He also discussed possible applications of the effects-based
approach and explored the implications of its use the in the human and virtual environments
of the future.
Grossman-Vermaas notes that conflict today has many diverse elements, such as
terrorism, peace support operations, and regime change involving the complex environments
of cyberspace, the nano-dimension, space, and the biological and chemical environments.
Given these varied elements, he argues that conflict has begun to resemble a complex
adaptive system, and that conducting operations in such conditions will require an equally
adaptive approach.
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In this context, Grossman-Vermaas visualizes EBO in three different ways. First of

all, he asserts that EBO is linked to the effort to leverage a nation’s (or a coalition’s) strategic
capabilities at the political, economic, technological, and information networking levels in
order to achieve politically satisfactory outcomes for a nation or coalition. It is, at the same
time, an intrinsically psychological concept, linking proposed actions to achieve physical
and psychological results at the operational level. Secondly, he argues, EBO seeks to control
the duration and gravity of a crisis or conflict, allowing nation-states to achieve strategic
objectives at a minimal cost. Thirdly, EBO may be seen as a process for obtaining a desired
outcome or effect from an adversary, friend or neutral through the synergistic and cumulative
application of military and non-military capabilities at the tactical, operational and strategic
levels. Consequently, Grossman-Vermaas emphasizes that EBO involves a broad range of
activities, of which military action is only a subset.
In his analysis, Grossman-Vermaas contends that users of the effects-based

approach will require a firm understanding of complexity theory, causality, networking
and complex adaptive systems theory. They will, he maintains, also need to move away
from the linear cause-and-effect Newtonian paradigm that underlies most current military
planning processes and embrace a new paradigm based on non-linear systems, where inputs
and outputs are not proportional, where the whole is not quantitatively equal to its parts,
and where cause and effect are not immediately visible. In addition to a shift in mindset,
Grossman-Vermaas tells us that an effects-based approach will also demand the application
of sophisticated technologies to the overall planning, decision making, execution, and
assessment phases of an operation due to the complexity of the approach and the volume
of specific information from interagency, academic, corporate, diplomatic, economic and
coalition intelligence sources.
In summary, Grossman-Vermaas says that EBOs are a co-ordinated set of actions

(or inactions) directed at shaping the behaviour of foes, friends and neutrals during times of
peace, crisis and war. These actions rely primarily on the exploitation of cognitive and kinetic
weaknesses rather than the traditional practice of simply massing power against power. This
approach to the achievement of a long-term strategic aim requires planners to develop a
better appreciation of increasingly complex human networks. It also requires a significantly
more sophisticated understanding of human values and mindsets over time and space as
well as a multidimensional analysis of the primary and secondary “nodes,” or “targets” to be
affected during the course of an effects-based operation.
Grossman-Vermaas acknowledges that EBO is a concept still in its infancy, and

that making EBO a reality will require the maturation of the appropriate theoretical and
analytical frameworks to consider a holistic spectrum of conflict that includes political,
military, economic, social, legal and ethical, and infrastructure and information segments.
Canadian Perspectives from the EBO Workshop

All participants in the DRDC-CFAWC workshop acknowledged that the idea of
achieving certain effects through military, diplomatic, and other actions is a very old concept
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that has been evolving for a long time. They conceptualized the term “effect” in a number of
different ways, but the idea that an effect is “a change, whether physical, moral or cognitive,
that has been caused by an action or inaction” seemed to be acceptable to most participants.
It was noted by some, that the word “effect” infers that there is no finality to the result of a
particular action and that there is always “more to come.” This idea has implications for the
concept of “end state” in operational art and campaign planning.
Despite its ancient roots, in its current context, the term “effects-based operations”
was derived from the writings of twentieth century air power theorists, and the term EBO
was popularized by the US Air Force in the late 1990s. Because of this recent background
and its technological focus, EBO is seen by some as a particularly air force approach to
operations. Given the perceived air force origins of EBO, some at the workshop preferred
to use the term “effects-based approach to operations” (EBAO), because, they argued, EBO
had become associated with a prescriptive, technologically-based, largely air force way of
conducting operations, whereas EBAO conveyed the idea of a broader, more philosophical
approach to operations.
Some workshop participants indicated that the term EBO had evolved since the
mid-1990s, as the early twenty-first century military-strategic situation has caused some to
emphasize the sociological as opposed to the technological aspects of EBO. For example,
conflict in the post-Cold War era has shown that tactical victories can be achieved, but that
they do not necessarily result in overall strategic success. Therefore, for some, a more human-
focussed version of EBO is the best way to link tactical actions to strategic goals. Others
acknowledged that EBO is a method that could help to understand the complex situations
that are found in today’s operational environments, but that current planning processes based
on the operational art were flexible enough to incorporate EBO concepts without changing
the processes radically. All workshop participants agreed that EBO was still an immature
concept that did not have enough explanatory power to be regarded as a theory.
Some at the workshop argued that Canada does not have the resources to fully
practice EBO, and, therefore could only employ EBO as part of a larger coalition or with
the United States. Nevertheless, most participants felt that Canada needed both to fully
understand EBO as a concept and to know how EBO might apply to Canadian operations if
Canada was to be an effective alliance or coalition partner.
Conceptual Foundations. During the workshop a number of concepts were put

forward as being fundamental to the practice of EBO. Despite the immaturity of EBO as a
concept and the differing views on exactly what constituted EBO, there was some consensus
among workshop participants that EBO should be a top down, integrated approach that
could be employed to make changes in the security environment to achieve one or more
desired end states aimed at attaining strategic objectives. It was suggested that if EBO
sought to produce change, whether physical, moral or cognitive, then changes should be
observable and measurable, either by objective or subjective measures. To be meaningful in
an EBO context, the change being measured should also be considered in terms of outcomes
as opposed to inputs or outputs. In this regard, an effects-based approach encourages the
consideration of the use of non-kinetic means to produce change, but it does not exclude kinetic
means.
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Another important concept that emerged during the workshop discussions was
the importance, when using EBO processes in a Canadian context, of adopting a whole-
of-government approach, in which there is greater interaction between the CF and other
government agencies (e.g., the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade).
All present acknowledged that EBO could be used to situate the use of the military
instrument of power in a broader “whole-of-government,” sometimes referred to as Defence,
Diplomacy, Development (3-D) or Diplomatic, Informational, Military and Economic
(DIME), context. In this whole-of-government approach, appropriate responsibility and
authority would be delegated to the agency or government department, or perhaps even a
non-governmental organization (NGO), with the right competencies and capabilities to
ensure that the right actor was employed to deliver the desired effect. However, for a whole-
of-government EBO approach to be feasible, clear definitions and terminology would be
required. This could be problematic at the moment given the diversity of ways of describing
EBO.
Implementing an EBO whole-of-government approach could also be problematic

if EBO is perceived to be a military concept rooted in military terminology. Some suggested
that for a whole-of-government approach to be successful, an innovative, multi-disciplinary
process is needed to bridge the gap between various government organizations. This new
approach would require a new vocabulary, based on language that could be understood by
all involved, as opposed to the highly technical and culturally-specific military lexicon that,
when used, often inhibits cooperation across government departments.
Furthermore, if EBO is to be successfully applied as whole-of-government approach

in Canada, it was suggested that this country needs a mechanism for determining how
strategic objectives could be attained, then determining which processes could be used to
achieve these objectives, and finally determining how to co-ordinate the application of the
selected processes among various actors.
The effects-based approach could have a significant positive impact on force

development, force generation and force employment in the CF, workshop participants
believed. If an effects-based approach used in a whole-of-government approach, however,
other government departments might need to be brought into the CF force development
process in order to incorporate their expertise at an early stage in the CF change process.
In an EBO environment, force development plans would need to address how to
maintain the CF’s kinetic capability while improving its non-kinetic capability. In terms
of force generation, critical thinking skills, an appreciation of intelligence products and
the importance of cultural factors would need to be important parts of CF training and
education if the effects-based approach is to be used by it. Using an effects-based approach,
CF force employment could have significant advantages if it were part of a whole-of-
government approach linking the actions of various agencies to Canadian strategic objectives.
At the moment, the effects-based approach to operations has a great deal of potential
to make a useful contribution as a guiding philosophy for the achievement of Canadian
strategic objectives, many workshop participants concluded. However, to be a useful tool
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in this process, much more refinement of the theory underlying EBO and related concepts
is required. The utility of the effects-based approach to the operational and tactical realms
of operations will also be problematic until the theory of the effects-based approach is
developed enough so that its practical applications can be derived.
Assessing Effects-Based Approaches

In his assessment of EBO from a naval perspective, Commander Ken Hansen, the
Defence Fellow at the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, Dalhousie University, tells us that
there is a long history of deriving strategic effects from naval operations, but that the purely
attritional nature of tactical naval warfare and the naval requirement for swift and decisive
tactical engagement serve as a warning against replacing existing theory and methods with an
effects-oriented approach to planning and conducting naval operations. He notes that despite
the fundamental differences between sea power and other types of military power, advocates
of EBO are advancing the notion of its applicability to all forces without any reference to
naval historical context and without an appreciation of the underlying theories of naval
warfare.
Hansen warns that placing effects ahead of objectives in the planning process, or
worse, replacing completely the achievement of objectives with effects, is foreign to the way
that sea power has been—and continues to be—applied across the spectrum of conflict.
He concludes that, while it is perfectly acceptable and usual to discuss the effects of naval
operations at all levels of planning, success in joint and integrated operations cannot be
achieved by compelling naval experts to depart from a style of warfare that is both centuries
old in its formulation and is in the midst of the single greatest transformation in its long
history.
Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Magee, an Army officer and head of the military plans
and operations department at the Canadian Forces College, takes a different view from
Hansen. Magee argues that current doctrine and the contemporary operational design
process, including the Canadian Forces operational planning process (CFOPP), explicitly
and implicitly oblige commanders and planners to think in terms of effects. He concedes
that current doctrine and planning processes can be improved, but that these improvements
should be accomplished by a better integration into the planning process of other
instruments of national power; a better, more systemic understanding of the operational
environment; and, a better assessment of the effects of actions on the achievement of
objectives and the desired end state.
The main weakness of EBO in its current form, according to Magee, is that it is
largely based on a reductionist approach to understanding enemy systems, which works
reasonably well with systems that have low interactive complexity, but will not work well
with systems with high interactive complexity, such as social, military, governmental,
political, and economic systems. Magee claims that many proponents of EBO lack a firm
understanding of current doctrinal concepts and that their speech and writing are filled
with an unintelligible “effects-speak” which adds to the confusion and misunderstanding
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of both contemporary elements of operational design as well as EBO. He contends that

we do not need another label, which on the surface suggests a newer, better method of
planning complex operations, but in reality only serves to confuse an already complicated
environment. In the end, Magee concludes that EBO has little to add but confusion to an
already proven operational design and planning process.
Lieutenant-Colonel Craig Dalton, an Army officer and a member of the CF’s

Strategic Joint Staff, considers whether the effects-based approach could enhance the
practice of strategic art. Like Magee, he notes that some critics of EBAO believe that it is
fundamentally flawed as a methodology in this regard because it attempts to make simple
cause and effect links in an environment that is too complex for these simple links to
have much explanatory value. Nevertheless, Dalton observes that many varied versions of
the effects-based approach exist. He selects the UK effects-based approach for evaluation
because of its potential to be of great benefit to practitioners of strategic art. According to
Dalton, the UK effects-based approach actually comprises three interrelated concepts: the
comprehensive approach, the effects-based approach, and the effects-based philosophy. Taken
together, he tells us that they form a UK effects-based framework whose underlying intent
is to infuse a “whole-of-government” approach into British security and defence efforts. This
framework is also designed to get decision makers and their advisors to think more broadly
about contemporary security challenges, both in terms of framing and understanding
problems and in formulating strategy. Despite its merits, especially in institutionalizing
the “comprehensive approach” to deal with problems in the contemporary operating
environment, Dalton concludes that the UK effects-based approach falls short in addressing
the challenges posed by the complex adaptive systems in the contemporary operating
environment that confront modern-day practitioners of strategic art. Therefore, because it
is no better or worse than existing approaches, he suggests that the effects-based approach
currently has limited utility for the practice of strategic art.
Applying Effects-Based Approaches

Few observers have described, in written form, how the Canadian Army has been
applying the EBAO concept. Therefore, despite their limitations, these comments by
Bob Vokac, a retired US Army lieutenant-colonel who has observed battle-staff training
throughout the Canadian Land Forces during 2005 and 2006, provide us with valuable
insights into how Canada’s Army uses EBAO while preparing for operations.
Vokac notes that the Army’s force employment concept, published in 2004,
embraces the effects-based approach:
EBO is the natural extension of our departure from the attritional approach of
attacking physical targets. It is a strategy that does not necessarily depend upon physical
force for attaining a desired outcome or effect on an enemy…. This will be accomplished
by achieving a full range of effects, both non-lethal and lethal…. In sum, the focussed use
of national assets, independently or as part of a coalition, will produce cascading, systemic
effects at the tactical, operational and strategic levels.3
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He also notes that parts of British and Australian EBO doctrine have been
incorporated into the Canadian Army approach to EBAO. This new hybrid Canadian
Army EBAO philosophy represents an evolution from the original military-centric EBO
philosophy and implicitly recognizes that effects are best achieved using all the resources
available to a commander and to a government, because the military instrument of power
alone is insufficient to achieve the effects necessary to reach the desired end-state, according
to Vokac.
He observed that, based on the Canadian Army EBAO philosophy, senior

commanders often chose to emphasize an effects-based approach during training exercises.
This approach had its drawbacks, however, as the infusion of the operational-level terms (like
end-state) into tactical-level exercises, if not properly tempered by experienced subordinate
commanders and staffs, has, at times, led to confusion and planning inefficiencies. Vokac
observed that in these situations all command levels struggled to attempt to define their own
effects, but often lost the important linkage that should have connected subordinate activities
(or tasks) to the achievement of higher level effects. Furthermore, he noted that while
almost all exercises do an excellent job of replicating the physical domain, they are much
less successful at replicating the moral or cognitive domain. Therefore, while an effects-based
approach is often planned, its execution is virtually impossible to simulate.
In fact, Vokac reported, even effects-based planning is hard to replicate given the
inherent difficulties in developing relevant measures of effectiveness. In addition, because
commanders and their staff, as well as those who design and assess exercises, are more
comfortable visualizing the effects produced by physical activities, they tend to focus on
force-on-force engagements rather than on psychological operations directed against an
enemy commander.
Vokac concludes that an effects-based approach to operations is consistent with

existing doctrine and does not appear, at this point, to be a revolutionary approach to
the way the Canadian Army plans and conducts its operations. However, to use EBAO
successfully, commanders and their staff must have a sound understanding of the battlespace,
including the linkages and relationships among all the actors in their area of responsibility.
It is only with this knowledge that commanders and their staff, knowing the desired end
state promulgated by higher headquarters, can properly identify objectives, then identify the
effects required to achieve the objectives, and finally select those activities required to create
the effects. Vokac believes that the necessary knowledge and skills to use EBAO well can be
imparted within the training environment, through the design of demanding and complex
scenarios.
Another way to ensure that CF personnel understand effects-based approaches

would be by studying them within the continuum of professional military education (PME),
according to Colonel Randall Wakelam, the Director of Curriculum at the Canadian Forces
College. He argues that, given the relative immaturity of the EBAO concept and the lack
of precision in descriptions of it, EBAO is more a philosophy of war than a technique to
be learned, mastered and employed. If one accepts this argument, then students can best
160
be prepared to use EBAO by developing their intellectual skills, critical thinking abilities,
creativity, and the like, through education, not training.
In Canada, Wakelam argues, the best time to introduce the study of EBAO as
a philosophy of war is in Development Period (DP) 3 which encompasses professional
education for majors/lieutenant-commanders and lieutenant-colonels/commanders and
which focusses on the use of military forces at the operational level of war. More advanced
study of EBAO should then occur at the DP 4 (colonels/captains (Navy) or officers destined
for those ranks) level. Wakelam notes that, in the past, both Britain’s Imperial Defence
College (now called the Royal College of Defence Studies) and Canada’s National Defence
College at Kingston (which operated from 1949 to 1995) examined national security issues
from a broader perspective than just the use of military courses of action. Their curricula
included a whole-of-government approach to defence and security issues in a global context.
Wakelam concludes that, based on the historical record, there is nothing fundamentally new
about effects-based approaches to operations; however, in order to use EBAO effectively
military professionals need relevant advanced PME to develop their intellectual capabilities
to the level required. The types of capabilities necessary for the successful application of
EBAO are evident from ongoing operations that use an effects-based approach.
In his second essay in this volume, Robert Grossman-Vermaas argues that, to be

successful, multinational effects-based operations must be based on desired and achievable
strategic end-states that should then guide campaign planning. Once the plans are made,
the optimum mix of civilian and military capabilities must be deployed to achieve a range
of long and short-term effects aimed at achieving the strategic end-states. The challenge
in this process, according to Grossman-Vermaas, lies with the integration, or bridging,
of such planning efforts externally among coalition partners and internally among large,
institutionally independent, military and civilian levels of government.
Like most other commentators, Grossman-Vermaas acknowledges that the effects-

based concept is still immature; therefore, while effect-based planning has demonstrated
some potential, it has not yet progressed to a mature experimentation or prototype
phase. Nevertheless, Grossman-Vermaas contends that future operations that employ the
principles of the effects-based approach will, by their very nature, require political and
military leadership to both anticipate and understand the consequences of actions. He also
emphasizes the fact that effects-based approaches are outcome-focussed and involve a broad
range of activities, of which military action is only a subset.
Consequently, Grossman-Vermaas believes that to be successful in employing the

effects-based approach, planners must develop a better appreciation of increasingly complex
human networks and the dependency linkages that connect communities of interest. He
goes on to say that to achieve their desired results, planners must have a sophisticated
understanding of culture and human values, the relationship between time and space, and
the ability to conduct a multidimensional analysis of primary, secondary and follow-on
actionable “nodes,” “targets,” networks, or dependency relationships between nodes, that are
to be influenced during the course of operations.
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Chapter 11
The end-state of an effects-based plan, Grossman-Vermaas argues, should be holistic

in all respects and one that promotes the integration and realization of the 3-D principle.
Based on results from recent multinational and interagency exercises and consideration
of the past, present and future security environments, Grossman-Vermaas maintains that
national and international non-military organizations and interagency partners should be
directly involved in the operational planning and execution stages of coalition effects-based
efforts. He concludes that to make this involvement viable, a “bridging” between civilian and
military values and perspectives must occur. This “bridging” is not simply a case of generic
civil-military training, however, and can only be accomplished by activities that achieve a
deep understanding of the cultural, social, and other differences among the various groups
involved.
Conclusion
At the moment there is no comprehensive and widely accepted approach to
effects-based operations in the CF. However, there are some common points of agreement
among various Canadian commentators. Most of those consulted in the EBO workshop
process agree that, given the state of theory and practice related to EBO, it should be
seen as a philosophy rather than a process. This philosophy, as it evolves, should—they
believe—involve a top down, integrated (or whole-of-government) approach that could be
used by a government to achieve a nation’s strategic objectives. They also felt that the term
“effects-based approach to operations” (EBAO) was preferable to EBO, as EBO has become
associated with a technologically-based, largely air force way of conducting operations. A
tentative definition, that effects-based operations are “co-ordinated sets of actions directed
at shaping the behaviour of friends, neutrals, and foes in peace, crisis, and war,” found
widespread acceptance among those consulted. However, there was little consensus among
them whether EBO, or even EBAO, had much utility in practice today, based on its current
immature state of conceptual development.
Notes
1. J.F. Cottingham, “Effects-Based Operations: An Evolving Revolution,” unpublished paper written
as part of the MA in War Studies program, Royal Military College of Canada, July 2004.
Environment,” DOR(Joint) Research Note RN 2004/01, Operational Research Division, Department of
National Defence, January 2004.
3. Canada, Department of National Defence, Purpose Defined: The Force Employment Concept for the
Army - One Army One Team One Vision, (np, 31 March 2004), 38-9.
162
Part VII - Annexes
Effects-Based Operations: An Annotated Bibliography
Annex A
J.R. McKay
Introduction
The origins of this annotated bibliography came from my preparations for the
workshop in which I examined the available literature. It is far from exhaustive in that
the volume of books, monographs, and articles on the topic of effects-based operations
(EBO) increases with every month. As a concept, EBO represents a synthesis of a number
of different ideas and is continually evolving. This presents a challenge for the authors of
annotated bibliographies in that it can be difficult to find a satisfactory point of departure for
the examination of the literature.
The sources used in this bibliography are exclusively from the English-speaking
world. In the main, they come from American military journals, staff college papers,
contracted works, and US Department of Defense publications. However, there are also
contributions from the Canadian Forces and Canadian Department of National Defence,
Great Britain, Australia, the Netherlands and Singapore.
There are a number of themes within the literature associated with EBO. These
include its lineage, explanations of the concept, “Strategy-to-Task,” Complex Adaptive
Systems, “Control” Warfare, the Instruments of National Power,1 Intelligence, Criticism plus
a series of miscellaneous topics. This bibliography has been organized along thematic lines;
within each theme, the works are presented chronologically. Some licence has been taken
with the classification of the works as many overlap or bridge more than one theme.
Lineage
T.W. Beagle, Effects-Based Targeting: Another Empty Promise? (Maxwell AFB: Air University,
2000).
This paper was a School of Advanced Airpower Studies thesis by a serving US Air Force
officer, produced in 2000, that sought to examine targeting processes in light of an effects-
based methodology. It is intended to act as an academic submission. The author compared
Operations POINT BLANK (strategic bombing of Germany), LINEBACKER II (1972
bombing campaign against North Vietnam), DESERT STORM (the 1991 restoration
of Kuwait) and ALLIED FORCE (the 1999 campaign against Serbia) and drew some
interesting conclusions. First, the author noted that the air campaigns were far more
successful at the tactical level than the strategic or operational levels. Second, the author
noted that the successful application of EBO was limited by planning and bomb damage
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Annex A
assessment. Finally, the author noted that psychological effects were the key to EBO, but the
least understood. This early contribution is interesting in that it represents a sceptical point
of view from within the ranks of the US Air Force.
Major K. Noedskov, “Systematizing Effect Based Air Operations,” Air & Space Power Journal
– Chronicles Online Journal (24 May 2000), pp. 1-11. Available at http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/
airchronicles/cc/noedskov.html. Accessed 19 December 2006.
This article, originally written in 2000 by a Royal Danish Air Force student at the US Air
Force Air War College, focusses on air operations and attempts to reconcile EBO applications
in air warfare with the levels of war and associated missions and tasks. The author was
careful to associate EBO with the strategic and operational levels. The article summarizes
both NATO and US Air Force doctrine with regard to targeting and campaign design before
addressing some of the literature related to systems analysis of the enemy. It is worth reading
if one is unfamiliar with air warfare.
Phillip S. Meilinger, “The Origins of Effects-Based Operations,” JFQ: Joint Forces Quarterly, 35
(Autumn 2004), 116-112.
The author, a renowned scholar of airpower, has produced a short yet informative article
that reminds the reader, through a discussion of the theories of strategic bombing in vogue
during the Second World War and the application thereof, that effects-based operations are
not necessarily new. On the one hand, the US Army Air Corps’ Air Corps Tactical School
(ACTS) had trained a generation of American airmen to conceive of the enemy’s economy
as a vast system with a series of nodes that could be struck. On the other hand, critics of
such approaches to strategic bombing referred to such nodes as “panacea targets.” This article
showed that John Warden’s conception of the “enemy as a system” was a renaissance of earlier
thinking than a new idea. It provides a succinct yet informative summary of the origins of
EBO that reminds the readers that the concept is evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary.
Charles Tustin Kamps, “Effects Based Operations,” Doctrine NOTAM, Air & Space Power Journal, 18,
no. 2 (Summer 2004), 18.
Charles Tustin Kamps is a professor at the US Air Force’s Air War College and a former
officer in the US Army and US Navy. This article provides a brief summary of the evolution
of effects-based operations and its long heritage in air power theory from Giulio Douhet
to ACTS to Warden to Deptula. He notes that the major enabler of the effects-based
operations concept has always been intelligence, but that its imperfect nature limited the
effectiveness ofthe concept. This appears to be an implicit call for the US Air Force to
increase the emphasis on intelligence issues and provides evidence of the existence of a debate
internal to that service.
Major Z. Jobbagy, Literature Survey on Effects-Based Operations, (The Hague: TNO Physics and
Electronics Laboratory, 2003).
As the title suggests, this is a literature survey on EBO. The author, a serving Dutch officer,
has created a lengthy summary of EBO-related material, including European and some
166
obscure American sources, to fill the first of a number of requirements for a PhD on the
topic. It is, however, not an annotated bibliography, as the author does not attempt to
make any judgments on the quality of, or bias inherent in, the sources. It is worth reading
as a primer, but it is three years old and the EBO concept continues to evolve. The author’s
conclusions still have some merit in that more research into the cognitive and psychological
domains and a common lexicon are required for progress to be made in better understanding
EBO.
EBO Explained
Major Thomas Tighe, Lieutenant-Colonel Raymond Hill and Lieutenant-Colonel Greg McIntyre, “A
Decision for Strategic Effects: A Conceptual Approach to Effects-Based Targeting,” Air & Space Power
Journal – Chronicles Online Journal (11 Oct 2000), 1-21. Available at http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/
airchronicles/cc/hill.html. Accessed 19 December 2006.
This paper, written by three US Air Force officers in 2000, applied John Boyd’s Orient-
Observe-Decide Act (OODA) Loop model to the analysis of an enemy with a view to
identifying opportunities for strategic attack. The paper goes into vivid detail of the various
conceptions of the OODA loop but concludes the best form of strategic attack is to defeat
the enemy’s decision process. The paper appears to be an academic submission of an Air War
College paper as opposed to a conscious advocacy on the part of the authors. It shows the
influence of Boyd’s theories on EBO.
Maris “Buster” McCrabb, “Explaining ‘Effects’: A Theory for an Effects-Based Approach to Planning,
Executing and Assessing Operations,” Version 2.0, dated 7 August 2001, 3. Available at http://www.
dtic.mil/jointvision/ideas_concepts/ebo.doc. Accessed 24 Jul 2007.
This paper, written by a former US Air Force officer turned academic, represents an attempt
to address the issue of the EBO lexicon combined with an analysis of US Air Force and joint
doctrine on EBO extant in 2001. The paper is intended to work towards the development
of a more coherent theory of EBO to inform doctrinal work and research and development.
The discussion of the lexicon is very useful as the author also takes the time to explain the
weaknesses within the body of doctrine and alternatives to EBO. It must be read by anyone
interested in the topic.
Colonel Edward Mann, Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Endersby and Tob Searle, “Dominant
Effects: Effects-Based Joint Operations,” Aerospace Power Journal 15, no. 3 (Fall 2001), 92-
100 (online version). Available at: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/
apj01/fal01/vorfal01.html. Accessed 24 Jul 2007.
This article, written by a pair of former US Air Force officers and a research fellow at the
Airpower Research Institute, provides an excellent lexicon of effects and their classification.
The article is an excerpt of the results of a 1999 Title X Global Engagement War game run
by Air University’s College of Airpower Doctrine, Research and Education (CADRE). The
authors describe the nature and type of effects, such as direct (first order physical, collateral,
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Annex A
psychological, and functional), and indirect (second or third order collateral, psychological,
functional, cascading, cumulative, and systemic) effects (the physical, functional, systemic,
and/or psychological outcomes or consequences that result from specific action). Their work
sets the standard for identifying and dealing with effects-related language. It should serve as
the basis for any doctrine work.
Major Reginald J. Williams and Rocky Kendall, Operationalizing Effects-Based Operations: An EBO
Methodology Based on Joint Doctrine (Langley AFB: Air Combat Command, 2004).
This paper’s origins are unknown, but it contains a short, yet good, summary of the lineage,
nature and existing lexicon of EBO written by a US Air Force officer and a civilian employee
at Air Combat Command Headquarters. It is intended to offer a methodology for EBO
planning; however, this methodology is based on the contents of JP 3-30 Joint Air Estimate
Process. The source makes the paper a rather US Air Force-oriented publication, and it
should not come as a surprise that Deptula and other US Air Force sources have influenced it
heavily.
Colonel J.F. Cottingham, “Effects-Based Operations: An Evolving Revolution,” unpublished paper

written as part of the MA in War Studies program, Royal Military College of Canada, July 2004,
which is also a chapter in this volume.
Colonel Cottingham is the commanding officer of the Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare
Centre and his paper provides an excellent summary of the literature and lineage of the
ideas surrounding EBO. The paper, like Meilinger’s work, summarizes the US Air Force’s
development of a number of ideas that converged in the early 1990s to generate the concept
of EBO. In addition, Cottingham’s paper sought to explain the causes and nature of
subsequent evolution, which the author explains with the concept of “spiral” development
or the evolution of different versions of EBO. He argues that there have been two “spirals”
or versions of EBO to date: the first was the development of the strategic military concepts
that led to John Warden’s and David Deptula’s concepts, and the second, dealing primarily
with the national instruments of power, was borne of coercion theories, the rise of complex
adaptive systems, and the 1990s experience of dealing with complex emergencies through
an interagency process. This paper, which appears in this volume, ought to be read by all
military professionals and academics of military affairs.
J.P. Hunerwadel, “The Effects-Based Approach to Operations: Questions and Answers,” Air & Space
Power Journal 20, no. 1 (Spring 2006), 53-62.
The author, a former US Air Force officer who drafted the early US Air Force doctrine that
introduced EBO, is recognized as an expert in the field. In this work, Hunerwadel appears
to be writing to those unfamiliar with or hostile to the concept of EBO. He makes an
effort to demonstrate that EBO is a synthesis of earlier concepts and that it seeks to bring
the military instrument of power into the broader context of the American government’s
National Security Strategy. He argues that EBO ought to focus on the desired end-state
and objectives, which he described as “Clausewitz 101.” Hunerwadel’s article represents an
attempt to debate with the critics of EBO as opposed to merely replying to their criticisms.
168
Douglas E. Lee and Major Timothy Albrecht, “Transforming Battle Damage Assessment into Effects-
Based Assessment,” Air & Space Power Journal 2, no. 1 (Spring 2006), 51-2.
No information on the authors could be found other than they are US Air Force officers,
but it is likely that they work in the realm of US Air Force doctrine. Their short article
recommends a methodological change to the assessment phase of the targeting process to
bring into compliance with the tenets and requirements of EBO. It is of greater interest to
those who wish to examine how EBO ought to occur as opposed to those that wish to debate
whether or not EBO ought to be adopted as a doctrinal principle.
Douglas E. Lee and Major Timothy Albrecht, “Strategy for Effects-Based Doctrine,” Air & Space
Power Journal 2, no. 2 (Summer 2006), 118-19.
This is another short article from Lee and Albrecht that offers a “way ahead” for dealing with
the confusion generated by the lack of common joint lexicon for dealing with EBO. Its
simplicity and argument make it a useful piece to read, even if it is very brief.
Strategy to Task
Dennis J. Gleeson, Colonel Gwen Linde, US Air Force, Commander Kathleen McGrath, US Navy,
Adrienne J. Murphy, Williamson Murray, Tom O’Leary and Joel Resnick, New Perspectives on Effects-
Based Operations: Annotated Briefing, (Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 2001).
Staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses prepared this paper on behalf of US Joint Forces
Command (JFCOM). It is the summary of a briefing and informs subsequent JFCOM
work on the topic. Their intent was to brand EBO as a joint, as opposed to US Air Force,
concept. The authors provide a summary of EBO, offering that the key to EBO was the
adoption of “effects-based thinking,” which combined the use of the military instrument of
power in a larger context to serve strategic ends and the consideration of effects.2 It is worth
reading to look at the origins of the JFCOM EBO efforts.
Major William E. Young, Discovering the Effects-End State Linkage: Using Soft Systems Methodology
to Perform EBO Mission Analysis, paper submitted to the 10th International Command and Control
Research and Technology Symposium – the Future of C2.
Major Young was a US Air Force student at the US Air Force Air War College when
this paper was produced. It was a submission to a symposium intended to suggest a
methodology to inform the process of mission analysis in EBO. His key point, apart from
the discussion of “soft systems methodology,” was that there has not been a lot of research
into how mission analysis deals with linking end states and effects. He criticizes the Political/
Military/Economic/Social/Infrastructure/Informational (PMESII)3 construct created by
JFCOM as being somewhat reductionist in nature and which does not describe an adversary
as a complex adaptive system adequately. The first half of the paper is worth reading for the
discussion of the end states and effects at all levels of war, but the second would be of less
interest to students of EBO.
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Annex A
Donald Lowe and Simon Ng, Effects-Based Operations: Language, Meaning and the Effects-Based
Approach (Canberra, Australia: Defence Science and Technology Organization, 2004).
The authors are a pair of Australian defence scientists and their paper was a submission to
the 2004 Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium. The paper was an
attempt to provide a logical framework for EBO through a coherent lexicon, but due to the
nature of the paper, it merely offers the first furtive steps to do so. While their arguments are
coherent and clear, readers familiar with the subject may find their conclusions to be obvious.
Lieutenant-Colonel Joshua Ho, “The Dimensions of Effects-Based Operations,” Defence Studies 5, no.
2 (Summer 2005), 169-87.
The author, a serving Singaporean Navy officer, worked on this topic while he was a senior
fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at Nanyang Technical University,
Singapore. His article was an exploration of the concept of EBO and an attempt to associate
EBO with the levels of war. He started with the premise that EBO offered an alternative
to the traditional strategies of annihilation or exhaustion by noting that destruction of
the enemy is but a means to an end.4 From there, he stated that EBO was a planning
methodology at the tactical level, a means to leverage other instruments of power at the
operational level and a framework for strategic resource allocation. This classification is
thought provoking and makes this essay and its predecessor5 very useful.
Steven D. Carey and Robyn S. Read, “Five Propositions Regarding Effects-Based Operations,” Air &
Space Power Journal 20, no. 1 (Spring 2006), 63-74.
The authors of this article, one a serving and the other a retired US Air Force Colonel,
offer the idea that effects-based operations represents a mindset that links all activities to
the overall goal. Their Proposition 1 was that all military operations should be effects-
based, regardless of their place within the levels of war. Proposition 2 suggested that
effects-based operations provides a comprehensive framework for coalition operations, and
that EBO is a means for coalitions to fight easily and in more sophisticated ways than by
using attrition or annihilation strategies. Others, however, had rejected this proposition.6
Proposition 3 suggested that intelligence preparation is the critical foundation of effects-
based planning. This means that military organizations must be capable of adaptation to
match the environment and should look for second and third order effects in the context
of their environment. Their fourth Proposition held that EBO should include specific
mechanisms to identify, measure, and assess the consequences of each action taken. Their
final proposition was that military forces should be specifically organized and trained to
conduct EBO. Their work represents an attempt to develop an operational concept to
inform future doctrine. This article has inspired some criticism as critics note that J.P.
Hunerwadel (see above) had already covered much of the conceptual ground found in this
article. Furthermore, some critics claim that their approach suffers from “ad hoc-cracy” and
imprecise definitions. One critic recommended that the concept be permitted to evolve
further before rejecting or codifying an immature concept, as was attempted in this article.7
Hunerwadel’s article should be read in conjunction with this essay.
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“Commander’s Handbook for an Effects Based Approach to Joint Operations,” (Norfolk, VA: US
Joint Force Command, 2006).
This is a “must read” book. It contains the most recent iteration of American joint doctrine
on EBO. It represents an attempt to provide a common baseline for effects-based joint
military operations within a whole-of-government approach, as opposed to the US Air Force
version of EBO. It offers guidance on the role of effects within the planning and execution
of joint military operations, and it states that the effects-based approach has a very limited
application at the tactical level.
Complex Adaptive Systems

Colonel John A. Warden III, “The Enemy as a System,” Airpower Journal 9, no. 1 (Spring 1995), 40-
55.
John Warden is remembered most for his influence over the early version of the 1991 Gulf
War air campaign and his 1988 work, The Air Campaign.8 In this work, “The Enemy as a
System,” Warden encourages his readers to apply the deductive approach to warfare, where
general rules are applied to arrive at specific conclusions. He follows this exhortation with
the use of scientific analogies (e.g., the body or an atom), to describe an enemy. Warden
owes a debt to Deptula in that he also uses terms like “control warfare” and “parallel
attack” found in Deptula’s work.9 Warden’s article merits reading as it provides a clear and
parsimonious concept to deal with the analysis of an adversary.
Paul K. Davis, Effects-Based Operations: A Grand Challenge for the Analytical Community (Santa
Monica, CA: RAND, 2001).
Paul K. Davis is a RAND researcher working on matters associated with operational

research. In this publication, written before the proliferation of effects-based articles after
the 2003 Iraq war, he provides a brief description of EBO and notes that the analytical
community had to invest more effort in figuring out how to deal with it. This was a call to
action to that community so that new concepts would not render it useless to practitioners.
He notes that the “systems framework,” by which he meant complex adaptive systems, makes
it difficult for practitioners to avoid failures and/or unintended consequences. Despite its
intended audience, the initial discussion of EBO is clear and free from jargon, which makes
it an extremely lucid and coherent introduction to the concept.
William A. Owens, “The Once and Future Revolution in Military Affairs,” Joint Force Quarterly 31
(Summer 2002), 55-61.
William Owens is a former US Navy Admiral who had worked on force modernization in
the 1990s. This article is primarily about the revolution in military affairs, but it offers a
succinct description of the concept of complex adaptive systems, noting that conflict is a
dynamic process. Owens states that there was: “…a new conceptual framework that some
called the system of systems. This concept depicts war as a deadly contest in which the side
that best understands the battle space and can best transfer that knowledge among its own
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Annex A
elements to apply force faster, more precisely, and over greater distances wins. The key was
seeing power in functional interactions and synergy.” This article represents an evolution of
Warden’s idea of the enemy as a “system” and merits reading for this reason.
Major Leonard Rickerman, Effects-Based Operations: A New Way of Thinking and Fighting, (Fort
Leavenworth, KS: US Army Command and General Staff College, 2002).
The author of this paper was a US Army student at the School of Advanced Military Studies
and the intended audience of the paper was an internal one. In the paper, Major Rickerman
examined EBO as the emerging joint warfare paradigm and sought to counter service-specific
criticisms of the concept as he concluded it was the best tool at hand to organize for joint
warfare. While an EBO enthusiast, he was careful to note that more work on the concept
was required. This work does not significantly add to the body of literature.
Edward A. Smith, Effects Based Operations: Applying Network Centric Warfare in Peace, Crisis, and War,
(Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2003).
The author was a retired US Navy Captain and the senior analyst for network-centric warfare
(NCW) and EBO at Boeing Corporation. This weighty volume is intended to discuss EBO
(defined as “co-ordinated sets of actions directed at shaping the behavior of friends, foes, and
neutrals in peace, crisis, and war”) and its application through NCW. The book is the third
in the Department of Defense Information Age series and is written in the vein of the 1990s
Revolution in Military Affairs literature. Despite the aforementioned broad definition, EBO
was later described in this work as “operations in the cognitive domain” and the book is
oriented towards the latter concept. Smith discusses complexity in detail and explores how
to generate the desired effect from an action, determining what other effects actions will
have and how to attribute causality to an action. He provides a conceptual link between
complexity theory and the lexicon surrounding effects. The book did not get good reviews
and its length (600+ pages) may deter some from reading it.10 However, these factors should
not detract from its contribution to the body of literature, and it is worth the effort to read it.
Robert Vermaas, “Future Perfect: Effects Based Operations, Complexity and the Human
Environment,” Directorate of Operational Research (Joint) Research Note 2004/01 (Ottawa, ON:
National Defence, 2004); and Robert Grossman-Vermaas, “Discourse of Action: Command, Control,
Conflict and the Effects Based Approach” (Ottawa: Department of National Defence, 2004).
Robert Grossman-Vermaas is a defence scientist with the Department of National Defence.

This first title was a monograph and was the first in a series on the EBO concept. It is
intended to inform readers of the potential benefits of the concept, such as the leveraging
of all of the instruments of national power, a greater economy of effort and a means to
influence allies, adversaries or neutrals. He notes that the inclusion of complex adaptive
systems concepts will have the greatest impact on command and control issues, and, as a
result, Canada ought to pursue a means of operational net assessment, the American term for
interagency information fusion.
172
The second work builds upon the contents of the first, and it expanded the discussion of
effects-based planning with regard to command and control. This work was one of the few
sources to deal with the issue of coalitions and information sharing. Both of these works
are worth reading as a primer for issues pertaining to complex adaptive systems and for the
broad perspective taken to EBO.
Edward A. Smith, Complexity, Networking and Effects-Based Operations: Approaching the “how to” of
EBO (Arlington, VA: Boeing Company, 2005).
Edward Smith, at the time of publication, was the Executive Strategist, Effects-Based
Operations for Boeing Corporation. This paper is aimed at addressing a perceived gap in
terms of cognitive and psychological effects within complex adaptive systems. However,
being somewhat short, it does not do so specifically, but offers a logical framework to deal
with the issue. This framework, based on living systems theory, provides the context for
understanding the concept of complex adaptive systems as open entities and is worth the
effort to read it on that subject alone.
Edward A. Smith, Complexity, Networking, & Effects-Based Approaches to Operations, (Washington,

DC: Department of Defense, 2006).
This book expands upon the aforementioned paper. In this book, the author recommends
the application of EBO as the best means of dealing with the complexity of the
contemporary operating environment. His 2003 definition of EBO in his Effects Based
Operations: Applying Network Centric Warfare in Peace, Crisis, and War (see above), remains
intact in this book, but there is a new take on the issue. Instead of being about operating
in the cognitive domain, EBO is now portrayed as an approach to warfare that puts the
“human-in-the-loop” as opposed to being focussed on technology. The argument presented
in the aforementioned paper has been expanded upon to discuss living systems theory in
greater detail as it relates to complexity. However, the book comes across as a repackaging of
his 2003 work to fit the counter-insurgency mould.
Major Robert Umstead and Lieutenant-Colonel David Denhard, “Viewing the Center of Gravity
through the Prism of Effects-Based Operations,” Military Review 86, no. 5 (September-October
2006), 90-5.
Two US Air Force officers wrote this work and it is intended to show that EBO is not
incompatible with existing practices such as “Center of Gravity analysis.” They, with a short
yet succinct discussion of systems analysis, suggest that the concept of a “Center of Gravity”
can be meshed with systems analysis. This article provides a good primer for systems analysis
as described by USJFCOM. The similarity of this essay to published doctrine is noticeable;
however, the editor of Military Review describes this similarity as coincidental.
Control Warfare
Major Jason Barlow, “Strategic Paralysis: An Air Power Strategy for the Present,” Airpower
Journal 7, no. 4 (Winter 1993), 4-15.
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Annex A
This article was written by a serving US Air Force Officer in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War.
The article advocates the adoption of a new strategy described as “strategic paralysis,” which,
at the time, represented a service-specific vision of victory through the massive application of
conventional air power. This theory, inspired partially by John Warden’s Air Campaign and
the 1991 Gulf War, held that air power could be employed to obtain a quick and relatively
inexpensive victory. The lynchpin of this strategy was to identify and target those sources
of the national instruments of power, which the author labelled as National Elements of
Value (NEV). Without the NEVs, an adversary would be literally unable to act effectively.
This article is worth reading as it pre-dates Deptula’s works and offers a different means of
describing what has become known as “control warfare.”
David A. Deptula, “Parallel Warfare: What Is It? Where Did It Come From? Why Is It
Important?” in William Head and Earl H. Tilford, Jr., eds., The Eagle in the Desert: Looking
Back on US Involvement in the Persian Gulf War (Westport: Praeger, 1996), 127-56.
This was the first of several versions of an article on the topic of “parallel warfare” by
an Air Force officer who had served as one of the main planners of the 1991 Gulf War
air campaign.11 His intended audience was the US Air Force community as well as the
American joint community. He argued that the 1991 Gulf War air campaign was “parallel”
as opposed to “serial.” Both terms were taken from electrical circuit designs where the
term “parallel” represents simultaneous and “serial” represents sequential. He noted that
this was not a new idea, but that technological advances (e.g., precision guided munitions
and stealth technology) allowed for it to be applied effectively. Deptula also redefined the
concept of mass in this article.12 And he argued that existing targeting processes support
strategies of annihilation or attrition and therefore a strategy of “control” (a means to make
enemy command and control ineffective) was being ignored. This was an argument based
on the principle of economy of force. Later versions of Deptula’s work modified some of
the concepts presented in this paper to include leveraging all of the instruments of national
power. This work ought to be read by all interested in EBO as it is one of the seminal works
on the topic.
Gary L. Crowder, “Effects-Based Operations: The Impact of Precision Strike Weapons on Air Warfare
Doctrines,” Military Technology 27, no. 6 (June 2003), 16-25.
The author of this article was the Chief, Strategy, Concepts and Doctrine of US Air Force Air
Combat Command. The article itself is a distillation of a briefing delivered in March 2003.
Although written before the start of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, the article discusses
the concept, first raised by David Deptula in this context, of “parallel war.” This form of
warfare, the author argues, can be used to achieve cumulative or cascading effects to achieve
control over the enemy. Crowder discussed the concept in light of the potential for a greater
economy of force offered by the combination of stealth technology and precision guided
munitions. He also suggested that EBO was a means to reduce possibility of collateral
damage.
Colonel Merrick E. Krause, “Integrated Coercive Strategies and the Role of the Air Component,” JFQ:
Joint Force Quarterly, Issue 41 (Summer 2006), pp. 68-75.
174
The author of this article, a US Air Force officer was the editor of Joint Force Quarterly.
He, like Deptula, argued that EBO represented a new type of war based on a strategy of
“control” as opposed to annihilation or exhaustion. Krause, however, based his argument on
the concept of coercion (the use of threats and/or discrete uses of force to alter an adversary’s
decision calculus). In this context coercion is intended to cause adversaries to feel a sense
of fear and/or loss, thus making them more willing to comply with the coercer’s demands.13
This introduction of coercion theory represents a further step in the logic of the economy of
force.
Harlan Ullman, “Slogan or Strategy? Shock and Awe Reassessed,” National Interest, Issue 84 (Summer
2006), 43-9.
Harlan Ullman is a Washington Times columnist and senior member of the Centre for
Strategic and International Studies. He was also one of the major contributors to a National
Defense University-sponsored paper that later became well known due to the widespread use
by the media of the paper’s title: “Shock and Awe.” The original paper was written to provide
an alternative concept for mission packaging in order to defeat an adversary quickly and
easily. The authors of the paper concluded that in many cases, the best means was to defeat
the adversary before having to engage in decisive battle.14 This concept, like some found in
Deptula’s writings, provides an alternative to strategies of annihilation or exhaustion. In this
2006 article, Ullman was attempting to set the record straight on the concept of Shock and
Awe after the media’s use of it to describe the opening of 2003 Gulf War. The concluding
paragraph of the article provides a rebuke to the Bush Administration and argues that the
proper use of Shock and Awe would have forced them to think through the second- or third-
order effects of the invasion, and therefore, make plans to address them. Ullman’s article
represents an attempt to disassociate his concept from the failure of US strategy to deal with
the post-invasion insurgency.
Instruments of National Power

Major H.A. Foster, Organizing for Effect: Assessing the Institutional Machinery Needed to Effectively
Conduct Effects-Based Operations (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University, 2002).
This academic paper, written by a US Air Force student at the US Marine Corps Command
and Staff College, is an analysis of EBO in light of the requirement to leverage the
instruments of national power. Using “control warfare” as a point of departure, the author
argued that knowledge of all aspects of the enemy was necessary and obtainable if and only
if all instruments of national power shared information with one and other. The author
argued that the American intelligence community needed to reform the interagency process
with regard to security issues and better prepare the armed services for operating in a DIME
context. Intelligence personnel would benefit from reading this paper.
Major David W. Pendall, “Effects-Based Operations and the Exercise of National Power,” Military
Review 84, no. 1 (January/February 2004), 20-31.
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Annex A
Major Pendall, at the time of the article’s publication, was a US Army strategic planner with
the National Security Agency. This article was aimed at the critics of EBO; it sought to
convey the message that EBO was the best means to leverage all aspects of military power.
However, the article read like a Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT)
analysis briefing and this approach and its tone was unhelpful. It did not, despite the article’s
title, address the instruments of national power in any meaningful way.
Major Robert B. Herndon, Chief Warrant Officer 3 John A. Robinson, Colonel James L. Creighton,
Lieutenant-Colonel Raphael Torres and Major Louis J. Bello, “Effects-Based Operations in
Afghanistan,” Field Artillery Journal 9, no. 1 (January-February 2004), 26-30.
This article was a brief discussion by officers of the US Army of the application of EBO
concepts by Combined Joint Task Force 180 in Afghanistan. The commander of the 10th
Mountain Division’s Artillery Brigade and members of the Divisional Artillery staff wrote
the article to demonstrate the utility of an effects-based approach to the broader US Army
artillery community. In short, they argued that the fire support community ought to expand
beyond the realm of kinetic weapons such as artillery and air assets and learn to synchronize
non-kinetic military assets and perhaps even non-military assets. The article reinforces David
Lazarus’ point about counter-terror campaigns.
Joint Doctrine & Concepts Centre, The UK Military Effects-Based Approach, Joint Doctrine Note 1/05,
(Shrivenham, UK: Ministry of Defence, 2005).
This is an official British military document that codifies thoughts on the effects-based
approach concept and provides a guide for further doctrine development. It is based on the
British Government’s “Comprehensive Approach” where all elements of government are used
to deal with complex emergencies. The effects-based approach is seen as a means to make the
military arm more effective within the comprehensive approach. The document also provides
an excellent definition of what constitutes an effect from a planning perspective (e.g., who is
to be affected, the desired change of state, when the effect is to occur, and the requirement
for effects to be both measurable and realistic).
Joint Doctrine & Concepts Centre, The Comprehensive Approach, Joint Doctrine Note 4/05,
(Shrivenham, UK: Ministry of Defence, 2005).
This is another official British military document. It provides an explanation of the British
government’s comprehensive approach and situates the British military instrument of power
within a broader framework. It is worth reading for the British perspective on whole-of-
government approaches to complex emergencies. This approach explicitly states that the
Ministry of Defence will often support other ministries as opposed to leading all efforts. For
example, in Operation FRESCO, the Home Office led the efforts that saw British Army
units serve as community fire brigades.
David B. Lazarus, “Effects Based Operations and Counter-Terrorism,” Air and Space Power Journal 19,
no. 3 (Fall 2005), 22-8.
176
David Lazarus was the Australian National University intern at the Australian Army’s Land
Warfare Studies Centre at the time of publication. In this article, he sought to compare
EBO with the demands of the global war on terrorism (GWOT). In so doing, he argued
that an effects-based method of targeting provides the “enabling foundation” for EBO, but
effects-based planning exists primarily at operational level. More importantly, he concluded
that the GWOT cannot be won purely by military or kinetic means, and as a result, a
coherent application of all instruments of national power is required. The article provides
worthwhile reading for an example of how EBO ought to be applied in a counter-terror
campaign.
Intelligence
Price T. Bingham, “Seeking Synergy: Effects Based Joint Operations,” Joint Force Quarterly 30 (Spring
2002), 52-60.
This article advocates that the US military adopt the joint application of EBO. This term
represents the synchronized use of air and land assets to force a dilemma on the enemy; for
example, the enemy could stay and be subjected to air and land attack or it could move and
be subjected to an even more damaging air attack. The author is a former US Air Force
officer who has written a number of other articles about targeting.15 However, the author
should not be considered as a typical US Air Force advocate of all things airpower as he
notes that the adoption of the concept would lead to an increase in command, control,
communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) assets
while the requirement for manned aircraft would decrease.16
Major-General James M. Dubik, “Effects Based Decisions and Actions,” Military Review 83, no. 1
(January / February 2003), 33-6.
At the time the article was published, Major-General Dubik, US Army, was the J9 of US
Joint Forces Command. This article appears to be aimed at sceptics of EBO within the
ranks of the US Army. The author advocated the adoption of EBO at the tactical level,
noting that it focusses on products as opposed to processes, as well as noting the crucial
role of intelligence gathering. He also drew explicit links between commander’s intent, the
definition of information requirements, and cross-Battle Operating Systems information
gathering. He argues that an effects-based approach allows for greater integration of the
operations and intelligence functions and activities than the existing paradigm. The article
would be of interest to those interested in a land-centric application of EBO.
Colonel Stephen P. Perkins and Lieutenant-Colonel John D. Jackson, “Effects-Based Operations and
Its Enabling Capabilities in Expeditionary Warfare,” Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin 30, no. 3
(July-September 2004), 11-19.
The authors were both US Army intelligence officers stationed at US Joint Forces Command
in Norfolk, VA when the article was written. Their work was an attempt to describe the
emerging concept of EBO and its potential benefits to their colleagues in the military
intelligence community. Not surprisingly, they noted that intelligence support is crucial to
177
Annex A
EBO at all levels and that success is dependent on the accurate identification of centres of
gravity as well as the assessment of enemy systems. They also argued that EBO allows the
government to leverage all of the DIME tools to change the Political, Military, Economic,
Social, Infrastructure, and Information (PMESII) situations in the battle space to achieve
goals. Lastly, they note that EBO ought to connect strategies and tasks in a synchronized
and coherent manner that causes the changes desired in the enemy’s behaviour. It is a good
primer for EBO advocates.
Other Concepts
Williamson Murray, ed., Transformation Concepts for National Security in the 21st Century (Carlisle
Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2002).
This book, edited by the noted historian Williamson Murray, is a series of articles written by
students at the US Army War College’s Advanced Strategic Art Program. The intent of the
volume was to explore some of the ramifications of concepts like EBO for the US Army’s
transformation program and to raise the questions surrounding those concepts. Three of
the papers within the volume merit discussion. Lieutenant-Colonel Brett Williams, US Air
Force, wrote a paper titled “Effects-Based Operations: Theory, Application and the Role of
Airpower” in which he sought to counter the criticisms of EBO. Williams, like many US Air
Force officers, argued that an effects-based approach naturally led to an economy of force.
He then noted that the JFCOM concept of rapid decisive operations (RDO) and Deptula’s
“control warfare” were rather specific and fundamentally tactical in nature, and he therefore
concluded that EBO was best applied at the strategic and operational levels. Lieutenant-
Colonel Allan Batschelet’s “Effects-Based Operations: A New Operational Model?” provides
an excellent summary of the lineage of EBO, such as Deptula’s concept of control warfare
and the Institute of Defense Analyses’ paper linking strategies and tasks. More importantly,
Batschelet, a serving US Army officer, notes that the theories had some common foundations
in terms of the importance of knowledge, the view of the enemy as a complex adaptive
system and the concept of commander’s intent. Finally, Colonel Gary Cheek, US Army,
sought to examine the ramifications of EBO for ground forces. He sought to address the
concerns within the Army that EBO was a means to support a reallocation of resources in
favour of the Air Force and the emergence of the “Strategy-to-Task” view of EBO.17 In his
paper, “Effects-Based Operations: The End of Dominant Maneuver?” he noted that the lack
of a common lexicon was unhelpful and, despite the enthusiast’s claims, there would always
be a role for ground forces in future conflict. The authors, with their strategic perspective,
provided three papers worth reading.
Air Vice Marshal Iain McNicoll, “Effects-Based Air Operations: Air Command and Control and the
Nature of the Emerging Battlespace,” Journal of the Royal United Services Institute148, no. 3 (June
2003), 38-44.
This article is a reprint of a presentation made by the author to a RUSI sponsored conference
on the future of air power by a senior Royal Air Force officer. The author, at the time of
publication, was the Director General Joint Doctrine and Concepts, which is the British
military organization that has published the recent joint doctrine notes on EBO (see above).
178
The article contains two fundamental messages set in a basic yet clear manner. First, it
reflects the emerging British paradigm of command and control, and second, that recent
conflicts (i.e., Operations GRANBY [DESERT STORM] and Operation TELIC as [IRAQI
FREEDOM]) have been fought using EBO. The combination of the forum, author, and
introductory tone of the article suggests that the presentation and subsequent article may
have been a “trial balloon” for the concept. Unfortunately, the article does not contain any
record of the audience’s reaction.
Guy Duczynski, Effects-Based Operations: A Guide for Practitioners (Perth, Australia: Edith Cowan
University, 2004).
Guy Duczynski is a former Australian Army member turned academic. His paper, produced
for the 2004 Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium, is an attempt
to translate the theories of EBO into a usable practical application. While a laudable goal,
the solution offered in the paper requires at least a familiarity with game theory and specific
decision-making theories. This limits its value for most readers, with the exception of
operational researchers.
Air Chief Marshal Brian Burridge, “Technical Development and Effects-Based Operations,” Journal of
the Royal United Services Institute 149, no. 5 (October 2004), 26-30.
This article was the transcription of the RUSI 2004 Trenchard Memorial Lecture given
by a senior Royal Air Force officer. This series of annual lectures, given by senior airmen,
is focussed on “pertinent issues of the day relating to air power.” In this case, the author
was the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Strike Command. His lecture (and associated
article) focussed on the opportunities created by a network-enabled capability (NEC) and
how this relates to specific programs for the RAF Strike Command. The article does not
specifically address EBO, but argues that NEC will lead to greater situational awareness,
therefore reducing the risk to aircrews, an integration of the application of land and air forces
to a common goal, and the ability of air forces to seize opportunities unavailable to ground
forces. While an interesting read, it does not bring to light anything significant regarding
EBO.
Alexandre Sergio Da Rocha, “Effects-Based Operations: A Military Application of Pragmatical

Analysis,” Air & Space Power Journal 19, no. 3 (Fall 2005), 29-38.
The author was employed at the Brazilian National War College in the late 1980s and early
1990s, and during that time developed a method called “pragmatical analysis.” This analysis
owes its roots to the philosophical movement of pragmatism, which holds that outcomes
of actions are the source of their meaning and that objectivity is merely a social construct.
Pragmatical analysis seeks to examine consistency in actions over time to discern the actor’s
purpose and offers a means of classification of such actions. It is a worthwhile read as it
pertains to EBO, but discusses it in an abstract and philosophical manner.
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Annex A
Major Jack Sine, “Defining the ‘Precision Weapon’ in Effects-Based Terms,” Air & Space Power Journal
20, no. 1 (Spring 2006), 81-8.
The author, a member of the American Air Staff Weapons Requirements section, produced
an interesting article that advocates an effects-based approach to weapons development and
procurement. His argument owes a debt to the change in targeting philosophy for the 1991
Gulf War air campaign where key nodes were attacked as opposed to entire target sets. Sine
notes that precision is currently measured in circular error probable (CEP) relative to the
aim point. He suggested that precision ought to be measured in quantifiable first order
effects, without second or third order effects, because: “Weapons employment produces
first-order effects and relies on a system of cause and effect for second- and third-order
effects. Target development includes responsibility to ensuring second- and third-order
effects by determining enemy-system characteristics and targeting appropriate points within
the system to achieve desired effects.” This approach seeks to reconcile CEP with targeting
processes, and it is an excellent example of how difficult it is to move from a quantitative to a
qualitative measure.
Critics
Lieutenant-Colonel Antulio J. Echevarria II, “Rapid Decisive Operations: US Operational
Assumptions Regarding Future Warfare,” Defence Studies 2, no. 1 (Spring 2002), 127-38.
At the time, the author was a US Army officer who was the Director of National Security
Affairs at the US Army War College. This article, published in a British journal, was a public
critique of the US Joint Force Command’s 2001 operational concept based around the
concept of rapid decisive operations. This article could be taken as a public criticism of US
DoD transformation. While no mention is made of the 1996 paper written by Ullman and
Wade on RDO, Echevarria notes that an operational concept ought to inform doctrine and
research and development efforts, but in the case of RDO, the concept is too ambitious and
may lead to interoperability issues with major allies. He also argued that the inclusion of
“systems” thinking (e.g., complex adaptive systems) is flawed in that the language describing
such systems implies that they are reactive, waiting for the US to stimulate them into action.
Furthermore, warfare is fundamentally an open (as opposed to a closed) system, which
renders systems analysis unhelpful. The article is worth reading as it provides a snapshot into
the evolution of EBO-like concepts five year ago.
Timothy R. Reese, “Precision Firepower: Smart Bombs, Dumb Strategy,” Military Review 83, no. 4
(July/August 2003), 46-53.
The author of the article, a serving US Army lieutenant-colonel, criticizes the enthusiastic
advocacy in some circles of precision guided munitions (PGMs). He notes that the precision
firepower advocates suggest the widespread use of PGMs to make war more efficient and
compress the levels of war. He argues that, while precision firepower is a decisive shaper of
the battlefield, it is not a singular war-winner. He accuses advocates of PGMs of “sloppy”
strategic thinking, because, for them, military strategy becomes a mere exercise in targeting
and destruction focussing on infrastructure as opposed to forces.
180
Brigadier Justin Kelly and Lieutenant-Colonel David Kilcullen, “Chaos versus Predictability: A
Critique of Effects-Based Operations,” Australian Army Journal 2, no. 1 (Winter 2004), 87-98.
The authors are serving Australian Army officers with academic backgrounds based on
education and employment. Their argument is that EBO may not be suitable to a land
environment due to the political process and its relationship with strategy. The political
process within any western democracy is based on compromises, they argue, and this makes
it difficult if not impossible to obtain clear direction from government on what effects are
to be achieved. This article addresses the co-ordination problem inherent in the whole-of-
government-type approaches very well and clearly.
Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Storr, “A Critique of Effects-Based Thinking,” Journal of the Royal United
Services Institute150, no. 6 (December 2005), 32-5.
Lieutenant-Colonel Storr, then a British Army officer serving with US European Command
in Germany, wrote this article that examined effects-based thinking in a critical light. His
audience is primarily British, although the RUSI Journal has a wide international audience,
and he appears to be offering a public caution to the British armed forces to consider
whether or not the concept has utility before adopting it. Storr notes that effects-based
thinking is founded on the logic of stealth bombers and precision guided munitions reducing
the requirement for mass, the adoption of mission command, and the process of tracking
activity as opposed to effect. He did not see anything new in the literature and wondered
if EBO was really an issue of semantics. Although the article was rather short, his point
about semantics should not be overlooked and EBO advocates would do well to address his
observations.
Milan N. Vego, “Effects-Based Operations: A Critique,” JFQ: Joint Force Quarterly 41 (Spring
2006), 51-7.
Milan N. Vego is a Professor of Operations in the Joint Military Operations department

of the US Naval War College. His article is a well-considered critique of the arguments
provided by EBO advocates and enthusiasts, and his article is aimed at providing an
alternative to their view of the concept. Vego states that EBO descended from network-
centric warfare (NCW), and both were flawed concepts, as they took a mathematical
approach to war where war is considered as a science only, as opposed to an art and a
science. Furthermore, he argued that, despite claims to the contrary, EBO is antithetical to
operational art.18 His final point is that the American military establishment does not need
to adopt EBO because the existing military planning processes are suitable. All interested in
the topic must read this article as it provides a clear and lucid series of arguments that merit
consideration against the adoption of the concept.
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Annex A
Conclusion
The sources in this bibliography show that EBO is a synthesis of a number of ideas and
that the nature of EBO continues to evolve over time. While debates over its utility and
applicability to all levels of war continue, there is a general consensus on the utility in
the EBO approach of leveraging all instruments of national power and the importance
of intelligence to EBO. On the other hand the immaturity EBO as a concept means that
there is still much work to be done before it can be used without causing confusion among
academics and military professionals.
Notes
1. This term covers the various terms in use associated with the coordinated application of all of
the Diplomatic, Informational, Military and Economic (DIME) instruments of national powers. It includes
the Canadian Defence-Diplomacy-Development (3-D) or whole-of-government approach and the British
“Comprehensive Approach.”
2. For the origins of this concept, see Leslie Lewis and C. Robert Roll, Strategy-to-Tasks: A
Methodology for Resource Allocation and Management, P-7839, (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1993).
3. For a discussion of PMESII, see Joint Warfighting Center, US Joint Forces Command, Joint
Doctrine Series: Pamphlet 7, “Operational Implications of Effects-Based Operations,” dated 17 November 2004.
4. The terms “strategy of annihilation” (Niederwerfungsstrategie) and “strategy of exhaustion”
(Ermattungsstrategie) originated with the German military historian Hans Delbrück. See Gordon A. Craig, “Hans
Delbrück: The Military Historian,” in Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy: from Machiavelli to the Nuclear
Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 341-44.
5. See Lieutenant-Colonel Joshua Ho, Singapore Navy, “The Dimensions of Effects-Based
Operations: The View from Singapore,” Australian Army Journal 2, no. 1 (Winter 2004), 99-106.
6. For example, see Benjamin Lambeth, Letter on “Five Propositions Regarding Effects-Based
Operations,”Air & Space Power Journal 20, no. 2 (Summer 2006), 5-6.
7. J. P. Hunerwadel, “Overpromising and Underestimating: A Response to “Five Propositions
Regarding Effects-Based Operations,” Air & Space Power Journal 20, no.1, (Spring 2006), 75-80.
8. See John Warden, The Air Campaign: Planning for Combat (Washington, DC: National Defense
University, 1988).
9. See the entries on David Deptula’s articles.
10. See Roger W. Barnett, “Effects Based Operations: Applying Network Centric Warfare in Peace,
Crisis, and War, Book Review,” Naval War College Review 57, no. 2 (Spring 2004), 180-1.
11. Subsequent versions include David A. Deptula, Effects-Based Operations: Change in the Nature of
Warfare (Arlington, VA: Aerospace Education Foundation, 2001). Available at http://www.aef.org/pub/psbook.
pdf . Accessed 27 Jul 2007; and David Deptula, “Foreword: Effects Based Operations,” Air & Space Power Journal
20, no. 1 (Spring 2006), 4-5.
12. See Buster S. Glosson, “Impact of Precision Weapons on Air Combat Operations,”Airpower
Journal 7, no. 2 (Summer 1993), 4-11; and Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Mann, “One Target, One Bomb: Is The
Principle of Mass Dead?” Airpower Journal 7, no. 1 (Spring 1993), 35-43.
13. Major works in the coercion literature include Lawrence Freedman, ed., Strategic Coercion:
Concepts and Cases (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Robert Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and
182
Coercion in War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996); and Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (London:
Yale University Press, 1966).
14. See Harlan Ullman and James Wade, Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance (Washington,
DC: National Defense University, 1996).
15. For example, see Price T. Bingham, “Air Power Targeting Theory: A Key Element in
Transformation,” Military Review 82, no. 3 (May/June 2002), 34-9; and Price T. Bingham, “Ground Radar
Surveillance and Targeting,” Joint Force Quarterly 35 (Autumn 2004), 88-94.
16. This argument is similar to the one made in another of his articles: Price T. Bingham,
“Transforming Warfare with Effects-Based Joint Operations,” Aerospace Power Journal 15, no. 1 (Spring 2001),
58-66.
17. This expression was attributed to the Gleeson, et al., New Perspectives on Effects-Based Operations:
Annotated Briefing 2001 IDA paper (see above).
18. This had led others to react to this argument. For example, see James B. Ellsworth, Letter to the
Editor, Joint Force Quarterly 42 (Fall 2006), 6.
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Annex B
Annex B
Application of Combat Power (Draft)1
Section 1
Introduction
1. Combat power is applied as part of a campaign plan in order to reach a desired
end-state. In planning the campaign, the application of combat power must be considered
with the aim of reaching enduring objectives and end-states that address the root causes of a
conflict. Whilst the application of violence against an adversary will always be the purview
of the military and other security forces, it must be done in combination with a range of
activities and other agencies to reach those enduring outcomes.
2. Combat power is applied in a harmonised and complementary manner across all

levels of command in order to achieve operational objectives and in turn strategic end-states.
It is applied through a comprehensive approach that sees the engagement of a wide variety
of targets and systems that influence the environment and are key to achieving the overall
end-state and lasting solutions. Planning focusses on identifying and articulating desired
effects that will lead to the required objectives and end-states. Activities are then directed,
through plans, to create those desired effects. Activities that lead to enduring end-states are
created by a wide range of agencies, in addition to military forces, and together they address
a wide range of systems and entities that affect the environment and the conclusion of the
campaign.
3. This effects based planning is applied through a manoeuvrist approach. This

includes physical activities that create obvious effects on a target’s capability and thus affects
the target’s behaviour. It also includes activities that seek to influence a target to affect
understanding, perception, will and ultimately behaviour. Often these will seek to influence
target audiences other than an adversary to support operations, objectives and end-states.
Thus, this manoeuvrist approach is applied on both the physical and cognitive planes. This
focus on effects and their realisation through a manoeuvrist approach are guided by the
principle of mission command.
4. This chapter will explain in detail the substance of each of these concepts and
how, when applied in unison, they apply combat power in a holistic, comprehensive and
complementary fashion that leads to enduring end-states.
5. In order to understand the concepts discussed herein, it is necessary to discipline the

use of the term “effects”. Effects are defined as: changes as a result or consequence of actions,
circumstances or other causes. An effect is the consequence of one or more activities that
contribute to one or more objectives. Effects are the physical, functional or psychological
outcome, result, or consequence that results from military or non-military activities at the
tactical, operational and strategic levels. They occur on the physical and cognitive planes.
184
Application of Combat Power (Draft)
Whilst understanding this, it must be remembered that an effect may be caused by inaction
as well2. At the tactical level, those activities normally constitute tactical level operations and
are assigned in mission statements and tasks. In simplest terms, an effect is a result, be it
physical or cognitive, of an activity or a series of activities.
Section 2
Activities And Effects On The Physical
And Cognitive Planes
General
6. The object of conflict is the imposition of one’s will on an opponent. The organised
application of violence by physical force is one means to that end and may be seen as a
traditional application of power. However, other activities may be undertaken that target
and affect an opponent’s or other’s will to fight or to support a particular activity. These may
include, for example, psychological operations in the form of flyers aimed at convincing
enemy conscripts to dessert or a target population not to support an insurgent element. Thus,
there are both physical and influence activities that may be undertaken in the prosecution
of conflict. Seen from this perspective, activities and their effects exist on two planes, the
physical and the cognitive, and activities fall into two categories, physical effects activities and
influence activities.
The Physical Plane

7. The physical plane comprises the physical objects, actions and effects in the
operational area. It includes military forces, the electromagnetic spectrum, civilian
populations, armed factions, logistical resources and infrastructure as well as the geography,
oceanography, and meteorology.
8. On the physical plane conflict is often a clash between armed combatants. Activities
on the physical plane and their direct effects3 are tangible and measurable. The physical plane
and related activities have the following attributes:
a. each party in a conflict expends quantities of munitions and other combat

supplies, and each is supported by the industrial and economic power of their
respective sides; and
b. activities and effects on the physical plane can generally be easily observed,
understood, estimated and measured with a degree of certainty. Of primary con-
cern are the material support requirements for manoeuvre and firepower. It is
on this plane that the science of conflict predominates, including those activities
directly subject to the laws of physics, chemistry and like discipline.
185
Annex B
The Cognitive Plane

9. The cognitive plane constitutes the motivation, conviction and commitment of
individuals and groups to pursue their objective. It may be referred to as the moral plane4.
It represents the will that enables them to overcome fear and adversity as well as the
cohesion that holds them together. It includes cognitive aspects such as belief in a cause,
indoctrination and judgement as well as emotive responses such as patriotism, ethnicity,
religious zeal and esprit de corps.
10. On the moral/cognitive plane, conflict is a struggle between opposing wills or a

struggle for moral and intellectual support from a target audience. The term moral used here
is not restricted to ethics but pertains to those forces of psychological rather than physical
nature, including the mental aspects of conflict. These are difficult to grasp and impossible
to quantify. They are manifest in such intangibles as the national resolve of adversaries, their
military plans and tactics, the quality of leadership and the determination of the individual
combatants to achieve victory. It also includes to the manner in which forces and their
commanders perceive and understand an environment and situation. Activities on the
cognitive plane and their resulting effects will seek to undermine an threat’s will, influence
his perception of a situation and/or influence the will of a populace or other target audience.
The cognitive plane and related activities have the following attributes:
a. activities and effects on the cognitive plane should follow a targeting process
identical to that of used for activities on the physical plane. This targeting
should be done simultaneously with targeting for activities on the physical plane
to ensure activities and effects are comprehensive and complementary;
b. activities on the cognitive plane are more difficult and require the greater invest-
ment in combat development and training, however they are more flexible. On
this plane the quality of military leadership, the morale of the fighting troops,
their cohesion and sense of purpose are of primary importance. Here the art of
conflict is dominant;
c. activities and their effects on the cognitive plane may have subsequent effects on
the physical plane. For example, leaflets convincing threat conscripts to dessert
will lesson the strength of threat forces.
11. Although much has been written regarding elements on an “informational plane”,
this level of existence has yet to be truly identified and defined as being distinct from
either the physical or cognitive planes. Information that exists on information systems, on
computer systems or even in the form of electrons belong to the physical plane, for they
can be blocked, destroyed or otherwise physically altered. Information that resides in an
individual’s mind or in the collective opinion of a group of people, and thus affects their
perceptions, will and behaviour, exist on the cognitive plane. They too can be altered, but
through non-lethal activities that seek to influence.
186
Physical Effects Activities

12. Physical effects activities are those tangible undertakings that consume resources
and produce immediate effects through motion and force. They may be lethal or non-lethal
and applied to create first order effects on the physical plane, and second order effects on the
cognitive plane.5
13. Physical effects activities will focus on the physical destruction, attrition, disruption
or denial of those things essential to adversaries through the application of lethal and non-
lethal fires and manoeuvre throughout the depth of the joint operations area. They include
all physical activities such as electronic warfare (EW). Physical activities affect capability in
order to affect an adversary’s behaviour.6 The goal is to contribute to the defeat of opposing
forces and to undermine their will and cohesion, by denying them the physical means or
opportunities they require to carry out their intentions and achieve their objective.
14. Physical effects activities may have second order effects on the cognitive plane, that
is, on the perceptions, will and ultimately on the behaviour of a target. For example, defeat
of a portion of the enemy’s force from an unexpected direction or timing will undermine his
confidence and morale.
Influence Activities
15. Influence activities non-lethal activities that target and affect the perceptions and
will of a target and thus the behaviour of the target. They may be physical or cognitive
activities:
a. Physical (influence) activities are non-lethal and create cognitive effects as a

first order and are demonstrative in nature. They include such undertakings as
a feint to deceive enemy commanders or the demonstration of capabilities (eg,
crowd control or firepower) to persuade individuals or groups to act in a certain
manner. They will include physical demonstrations of commitment and cred-
ibility as reflected in the CIMIC supported reconstruction of infrastructure and
social development, which in turn engender support from political/social leaders
and local populations.
b. Cognitive (influence) activities are those intellectual, perception related

activities undertaken to shape perceptions, understanding, will and ultimately
behaviour, by using or affecting information. They seek to influence target audi-
ences and are exemplified by such activities as broadcast of radio announcement
to a local populace advertising the benefits of the ongoing operation or the issue
of flyers to enemy conscripts encouraging them to surrender. Cognitive activities
include activities such as public affairs, psychological operations, the profile and
187
Annex B
posture of troops interacting with a local populace7, and civil-military coopera-

tion (CIMIC), as realised through support to infrastructure and social develop-
ment activities. It will include such disparate activities as the issue of flyers to
persuade enemy conscripts to flee, and the development of public infrastructure
to engender support from a populace
16. These activities focus on promoting perceptions and attitudes, influencing will and
affecting behaviour of governments, organizations, groups and individuals, including those
that are opponents, friends and neutral, to support the achievement of the objective and
ultimately the end-state.
17. The activities convey selected information as well as physical evidence and
indications to target groups and individuals with the aim of influencing their emotions,
attitudes, motives, perceptions, reasoning and ultimately their behaviour. Although influence
activities are conducted on the cognitive plane only, they may have secondary results on the
physical plane. For example, flyers that convince enemy conscripts to flee will have the first
order cognitive effect of causing them to flee and the second order effect on the physical
plane of reducing the enemy commander’s combat power. It will thus likely have a third
order effect on the cognitive plane of undermining the commander’s confidence.
18. The need to influence a target audience may be key to the long-term success of a
mission. Commanders at the lowest levels must be made to understand the importance
of such influence activities and the effects, positive and negative, that may be gained from
them. The conduct of individual soldiers will influence the perceptions and support of local
populations and one incident of poor conduct can rapidly undermine, in an exponential
manner, many positive influences.
19. Influence activities have been, in the recent past, classified as part of Information
Operations. However, Information Operations are being redefined to apply solely to these
influence activities. (See Section 4.)
Effects Through Physical Effects Activities

20. Physical activities will create first order effects on the physical plane and often
second order effects on the cognitive plane.
21. Physical activities that lead to the destruction of the threat’s capacity to fight will
be but one of a number of ways to defeat him. Selective physical destruction can be aimed
at isolating components of the force or breaking the threat physically into smaller groups.
Destruction may be pursued to undermine an adversary’s ability to conduct operations, but
is often most effective when it is used to damage the adversary’s morale, and increase his
feelings of fear, desperation and hopelessness. That is, physical activities are most effective
in creating second order effects on the cognitive plane. Thus, physical activities affect an
adversary’s behaviour by attacking capability as a first order, and by affecting perception and
will, and ultimately behaviour as a second order.8
188
22. Physical destruction may not in itself lead to success. The destruction, for example,
of a large number of insurgents will not solve the underlying causes of an insurgency and
may create new recruits to the movement. This would be a physical activity that leads to an
undesired second order effect on the cognitive plane. Additionally, targeting the adversary
could cause unnecessary collateral damage that in turn undermines the support of a neutral
populace and the legitimacy of a campaign and creates new opposition. Success criteria
that rely on destruction must take into account the risk to public and political support that
protracted and inconclusive battles and engagements entail. Physical destruction of the
adversary, by itself, is not therefore a wholly reliable means of achieving lasting success even if
it is aimed at the secondary effects against will and behaviour on the cognitive plane.
Effects Through Influence Activities

23. Since defeating an adversary by physical activity and its related effects, be they on the
physical or cognitive planes, alone has limitations and rarely leads to a campaign end-state,
land operations doctrine also encompasses activities that seek to create a direct, first order
effect of influencing target audiences. Thus, influence activities create first order effects on
the cognitive plane and possibly second order effects on the physical plane.
24. These target audiences are wide in scope. They may be elements of the adversary,
such as weak willed conscripts that can be encouraged to flee the battlefield. They may
include individual power holders, religious leaders and segments of a populace in order
to influence perceptions and gain support for the campaign and its objectives. They may
also include allies and friendly troops in order to counter adversary propaganda and biased
media coverage.9 In short, these target audiences will include adversary, friendly and neutral
individuals and groups.
25. The key to employing influence activities is to decide the effect that is to be created.
Activities can then be assigned to create those desired effects or to avoid undesired effects.
A wide range of activities will be used to influence a target. They include: deception;
psychological operations; CIMIC activities; selected posture and profile of troops; and public
affairs to name the most pervasive means. Examples are given as follows:
a. A feint by forces will affect the enemy commander’s perception, influence him
to incorrectly identify the main effort and move his forces away from the true
intended area of attack, thus affecting his behaviour;
b. A firepower demonstration during a peace support campaign may convince a

belligerent commander not to manoeuvre his forces.
c. Psychological operations may be used in the form of a public radio station to

bring accurate news to a local populace and to encourage their support for a
counter-insurgency campaign;
189
Annex B
d. CIMIC activities may assist in civil reconstruction in order to engender moral

support from a government and its populace and to enhance the perception of
the campaign by an local populace.
e. Public affairs messages may be issued in order to counter enemy propaganda

and ensure local and international support for the campaign and its operations.
26. Influence activities may be conducted to create their own effects or they may be
conducted to support physical activities. For example, prior to a deliberate attack on an
enemy position, PsyOps flyers may be dropped informing enemy soldiers of the means to
surrender and giving a promise of fair treatment.
27. Influence activities are a key part of the concept of full-spectrum operations.
28. In order to understand what activities are required to create influences and thus the
desired cognitive effects and behaviour, a commander must understand the target audience
and the cultural and environmental influences that affect the target’s cognitive reasoning.
Unintended effects may occur and do enormous damage to the campaign. For example, the
firepower demonstration conduct to convince a belligerent commander not to manoeuvre his
forces may only serve to embarrassment him in front of his supports and thus cause him to
actually manoeuvre his forces. Likewise, activities taken to instil fear or dissuasion in a target
audience, for example, may only create hatred instead.10
The Interaction And Balance Of Activities On The Two Planes

29. Each episode in a conflict is a unique product of the dynamic interaction of a
multitude of moral and physical forces. Whereas the physical activities and effects on the
physical plane may be quantified with some measure of effectiveness, influence activities
and effects on the cognitive plane are difficult to qualify and measure. Notwithstanding
the difficulty in assessing effects on the cognitive plane, it is ultimately these effects that will
achieve the lasting objectives and end-state of a campaign. An adversary force with a strong
will and moral fibre may continue to fight even asymmetrically once its material forces have
been depleted; but, they will not continue to fight effectively once their morale and will have
been destroyed.
30. To attack the threat’s will to resist, an understanding of the nature of human will
is necessary. When an individual faces combat, the primary responses are to fight, flee, or
surrender. In most cases, an attack on the adversary’s will to fight should be accompanied by
measures that encourage the threat to surrender or flee.
31. This can be accomplished not only through fear generated by violent physical
actions such as massive firepower but also by surprising him with unexpected threats. It can
also be supported by offering fair treatment for prisoners and wounded, showing respect for
the law of armed conflict, offering honourable surrender terms or pursuing other methods
that legitimize and encourage his surrender. If desirable, flight can be encouraged by offering
190
an open avenue of escape, such as when dispersing a riot. These can be seen to be activities
that create effects on the cognitive plane.
32. An individual’s will to resist is built on internal influences, those of the group, and
those of the leader. Internal influences include personal motivation and emotions, such as
hatred or revenge, that motivate the individual to continue fighting even if alone. Often
more dominant are the influences of the small group. Battlefield studies, notably the work
of S.L.A. Marshall, have shown that the primary reason men fight is the feeling of group
loyalty or the fear of letting down other members of the group. The individual, and in fact
the group, are also affected by the influence of leaders who can provide motivation and
compulsion to fight and legitimize the efforts of individuals.
33. It is difficult to alter strongly held personal beliefs, and closely-knit small groups are
difficult to break up. Therefore, efforts aimed at attacking the threat’s will to fight should
focus on two areas. The first is to attack the leaders’ will to fight and the second is to disrupt
the bonds between larger groups, and shattering the links between leaders and followers.
In other words the preferred method of attacking the will to fight is to render the threat
incapable of resisting by shattering the physical and moral cohesion of his force.
34. Even when an adversary force is defeated in a physical sense, lasting peace will not
result unless there is a moral will to support it and the means for sustaining it. Thus much
effort, from the military and from other agencies, will be expended seeking those lasting
effects. Firstly, there will be a great deal of influence activity to engender support for the
campaign and its objectives. Secondly, there will be much activity, by the military but ideally
by other agencies, to build institutions and capabilities amongst the indigenous society to
secure a lasting stability and peace.
35. This comprehensive construct can be summarised as follows:
a. Physical activities will help defeat an enemy through destruction of his capabil-
ity on the physical plane. This will alter his behaviour. On the cognitive plane,
well planned physical activities that destroy capability will, as a second order
effect, alter perceptions and will of an enemy and thus affect his behaviour.
b. Influence activities, be they physical or cognitive, will have a first order effect on
the cognitive plane that will influence perceptions, affect will and thus behaviour
of a target audience that will include individuals and groups, be they friendly,
adversarial or neutral. When aimed at leaders and local populaces, they generally
seek to engender support for a campaign and its long-term objectives.
c. Many of the influence activities will be undertaken by agencies other than the
military, but ideally in close cooperation with the military. These will seek to cre-
ate the institutions and capabilities for long-term stability and peace.
191
Annex B
Behavior
Affects Behaviour Affects Behaviour
2nd Order Effect

Will Capability
Perception
Physical Effects
Cognitive Effects
Physical
Influence
Effects
Activities
Activities
Range of
Capabilities
Figure 5-1. Interaction of Physical-Effects Activities and Influence Activities
36. Therefore, conflict remains ultimately an activity of human creativity and intuition
powered by the strength of human will. It requires intuition to grasp the essence of unique
situations, creativity to devise innovative solutions and the strength of purpose to act.
Conflict is above all a moral undertaking. As a result, moral/cognitive forces exert a more
significant influence on the nature and outcome of conflict than do physical. This point is
fundamental to understanding Canadian Land Force doctrine.
37. In considering these activities together, a taxonomy can be summarised. This is not
new terminology, but simply a better method of articulating all the activities and operations
that military forces have undertaken to create desired, lasting effects.
Physical Plane Cognitive Plane

Lethal and Non-lethal Activities Non-Lethal Activities
Physical Activities Influence Activities: Physical & Cognitive
Physical Effects – First order Cognitive Effects – First Order
Figure 5-2. Taxonomy for Activities on the Physical and Cognitive Planes
192
38. This concept is not new. Competent military commanders have always understood
the need to balance their activities to create desired effects on the physical and cognitive
planes and history is full of examples of such campaigns. The commander will decide upon
the balance between his capabilities and activities based on the campaign theme and its
guiding principles. For example, whilst a major combat campaign against a conventional
adversary will require mainly physical activities supported by some influence activities such
as deception and PsyOps, a COIN campaign may require only enough physical activity to
neutralise the insurgents whilst the military and other agencies work to gain the confidence
and support of the local populace through influence activities, such as infrastructure and
economic development.
39. The figure below illustrates the conduct of activities on the physical and cognitive
planes.
END-STATE
OBJECTIVES
Tgt is Tgt is
Cognitively
Physically
Altered
Altered (Acts the
(Cannot Way You
Act) Want)
2nd
Order
Effects Influence Activity
Physical Effects
Activity Physical Cognitive
Lethal Non-
Non-Lethal
Lethal
Figure 5-3. Activities and Effects on the Physical and Cognitive Planes
Defining Success Through The Application Of Combat Power

40. In order to reach the desired end-state and thus successful conclusion of a campaign,
a number of agencies will be involved in addition to the military. This will ensure that all the
elements of a situation that led to military intervention are addressed in order to establish a
lasting stability and peace.
193
Annex B
41. The primary role of the military will to be to employ its monopoly on force and
to counter threats of violence and military power posed by an adversary. The object of the
use of force or threat of force is to impose the force’s will upon specific targets. In many
campaigns military capabilities will be employed to neutralise an enemy threat in order to
allow other agencies to undertake their activities in a secure environment that will address
long term solutions to the situation. In addition to this, military capabilities, in conjunction
with those of other agencies and elements, will be used to create effects and support
objectives, in relation to a local populace and supported government. For example, military
forces may be used to build infrastructure or to support other agencies in such efforts.
These will be done to create a better, more stable environment and to engender support
and stability from a populace and local authority; that is, they will create effects on the
cognitive plane. Thus the campaign will employ a comprehensive approach that deals with
an enemy or potential adversary and supports a government or population segment using a
combination of physical and influence activities to create lasting effects on the physical and
cognitive planes.
42. Success is measured against predetermined criteria that support the decided end-
state. The end-state is the result that must be achieved at the end of a campaign to conclude
the conflict on favourable terms. The end-state will likely have political, diplomatic,
economic and psychological, as well as military aspects, and hence will require the multi-
agency, comprehensive approach.
43. Victory in a campaign, in military terms, may not see the outright surrender of an
opposing force. Rather than a pure military victory, the end-state may often be defined in
terms such as reconciliation, acceptance of the status quo, or agreement to a peace plan. In
many campaigns such as counter-insurgency, there may be no outright victory, but only a
concession by the insurgents to pursue peaceful means to reach their political goals or the
development of an indigenous capacity (physically and intellectually) to deal decisively with
the insurgency on their own. Success, in short, will occur through activities on both the
physical and cognitive planes.
Maintaining Cohesion And Attacking The Threat’s Cohesion

44. Cohesion is unity and it is derived from all three components of combat power:
the physical; the conceptual; and the moral. It is the quality that binds together constituent
parts of a military organisation and brings a measure of quality to its combat power. With
a cohesive force, a commander can maintain unity of effort in imposing his will on the
adversary or other target audiences. Cohesion comprises the general identification with a
common aim or purpose (conceptual component), the means to concentrate force in a coordinated
and timely manner (physical component) and the maintenance of high morale (moral component).
45. Cohesion reflects the unity of effort in the force. It includes the influence of a
commander’s intent focussed at a common objective, the motivation and esprit de corps of
the force and also the physical components necessary to integrate and apply combat power.
Cohesion therefore has both moral and physical components.
194
46. The adversary’s cohesion can be attacked by making his overall aim, or the missions
of his component parts, increasingly inappropriate or irrelevant, by forcing him to dissipate
his forces in both time and space and by targeting the moral and material pillars of his
morale. The adversary’s cohesion may also be attacked on the purely on the cognitive plane
but undermining his moral justification and his legitimacy in this own eyes and in the eyes of
potential supporters.
47. Cohesion is an intangible but potent force. A breakdown in cohesion will lead to
isolation, fear, confusion, and loss of the will to fight. The threat will be unable to apply his
full combat power and his component parts can be defeated in detail. Ideally, the result is
an adversary made up of a collection of individuals and small groups lacking motivation,
direction and purpose. This loose collection can be more easily defeated because the ability to
fight effectively as a force has been eliminated, that is, they have been affected on the physical
and cognitive planes.
48. Breaking the threat’s cohesion, however, may only be a temporary or transitory
effect, and the threat could regroup and recover if pressure is not maintained. Where physical
and moral cohesion is shattered and resistance continues, such as by fanatical individuals or
groups, physical destruction may be the only alternative. This however should be seen as a
last resort.
49. In summary combat power must be created and applied through activities, with a
view to shattering the threat’s moral and physical cohesion, while bolstering that of the allies
and neutral elements. In order to accomplish this activities must be undertaken on both the
physical and moral/cognitive planes in a complementary and synchronised fashion.
Section 3
A Comprehensive Approach And Focus On Effects
There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the mind. In the end the sword
is always beaten by the mind.
Napoleon
General
50. Rarely will a campaign meet with success through military action only. Campaigns
occur in complex situations that involve local populations, urban areas, complicated social
and political structures and extensive, inter-related problems that led to the need for military
intervention. Long term success and stability will only occur with the support of the majority
of an indigenous population. Thus, in order to address all facets of a complex environment,
195
Annex B
most military campaigns must involve the employment of other government agencies, such
as those with expertise in social and political development and economic development. Only
such an approach will create the conditions for a sustainable stability.
A Comprehensive Approach
51. The Land Force follows an effects-based approach to the conduct of campaigns
and operations, in order to deal with the conditions in the modern battlespace and to reach
successful, lasting conclusions to those campaigns. The successful, lasting, conclusion to a
campaign will likely require more than just a military solution. The causes of the situation
that required the military intervention in the first place will likely include a wide range,
from the economic, to the political, to the social, and thus require the application of other
agencies and elements of power in order to address all of these interconnected systems.
52. To that end, the military must work in harmony with the diplomatic, economic
and various other instruments of power so that all elements of an environment are addressed
in the most appropriate and effective fashion, in order to reach those lasting end states.
This approach recognises that a lasting end-state requires effects and objectives on both the
physical and cognitive planes and therefore requires the resources and work of more than
simply the military. This approach to a campaign may be termed a comprehensive approach
and begins at the strategic level of planning.
53. This comprehensive approach may be defined as: commonly understood principles and
collaborative processes that enhance the likelihood of favourable and enduring outcomes within a
particular environment. A comprehensive approach seeks to incorporate all the elements of
power working to reach the strategic end-state and harmonise them, their capabilities and
activities in order to address the elements and complexities present in an environment.
54. It does not mean to imply that a military authority is overall in charge of a campaign
but only seeks to ensure that military activities, effects and objectives lead to the strategic
end-state and are complementary to those of the lead agency and of other elements of
power. This approach brings together not only other government agencies, but also other
organisations, be they international or indigenous.
55. Whilst the military will focus on security and defeating, or at least neutralising,
an adversary, other elements of power will address those elements and systems of the
environment that ensure lasting security for a populace – the political, social and economic
elements. Although this is done to meet the long-term objectives of a campaign, it is also
undertaken to ensure support from local populations and leaders who are key to long-term
success and stability.
56. During the early stages of a campaign the security situation may only allow for
the military to undertake all aspects of the campaign. Hence the military may undertake
the initial reconstruction and economic and political development and reform of security
services. Once the security situation improves, other agencies should be able to assume the
196
lead in these non-martial responsibilities. Eventually, the campaign may reach such a state
that the military’s role will be reduced to an minimum and indigenous forces will be able to
handle any residual threat to security.
57. The campaign design may involve a formal unified structure with a lead agency
and commander, and all agencies, be they military or civil, working within a single chain of
command. Such constructs are ideal and work to ensure excellent harmony and cooperation
between agencies. Such situations will be rare however.11 Usually, informal arrangements will
have to be designed in order to ensure that all agencies work in a complementary manner
in the attainment of agreed objectives and end-states. Often there will be a major onus on
the military commander to ensure that genuine, cooperative and collaborative working
environments are developed between the military and other agencies, be they national,
international, local or unaligned NGOs. Participants must work proactively by sharing
understanding of situations and conducting planning and activities on the basis of agreed
favourable outcomes in the short, medium and long term. Hence, the comprehensive
approach will rely as much on personal relationships as on formal arrangements. Processes
and structures may need to be adapted to reflect specific circumstances and situations. For
example, a military headquarters may have to accommodate the interface with non-military
organisations and take the lead in coordinating objectives and efforts. The comprehensive
approach must also consider actors and agencies beyond the government, such as non-
government organisations (NGOs), international organisations (IOs), local agencies and
leaders and others, all of which conduct activity and pursuer objectives that have a bearing on
the successful conclusion of the campaign.
58. Although the comprehensive approach begins at the strategic level, it should be
viewed and implemented pervasively throughout all levels of command. Hence, it will be
envisioned, designed and ideally empowered at the strategic level in order create strategic
end-states, but implemented and practised at both the operational and tactical level. At
the operational level, commanders will endeavour to ensure a holistic and complementary
integration of military and non-military agencies in order to address all systems and elements
within the environment, thus creating physical and cognitive effects that support operational
objectives. This comprehensive approach should be replicated as appropriate at the tactical
level where unit and even sub-unit commanders will work with other agencies to create
effects that support enduring objectives.
59. Through this comprehensive approach, the influence activities that create enduring
effects on the cognitive plane will be created by both the military and other agencies. This
comprehensive approach uses all instruments of power to address all the systems that
influence an environment and the need for the intervention and campaign. Activities
within an environment must be considered against more than simply an adversary. All
systems - political, military, economic, social, infrastructure and informational - within the
environment must be identified and considered in terms of their power structures, inter-
relationships and influences on the desired objectives and end-states. Activities planned
and taken by all agencies including the military must be considered in terms of their effects
on each of these systems in relation to the desired outcomes. Only in this comprehensive
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Annex B
manner – using multiple agencies in addition to the military to address all the systems
and elements in an environment – will long term solutions to campaigns be reached.
60. The comprehensive approach consists of three elements:
a. Unifying Theme. In striving towards a strategic end-state, the lead agency

should issue a unifying theme that is focussed on long-term outcomes and end
states. For the military, this should be pervasive throughout the campaign de-
sign. It should be developed in the commander’s visualization of the campaign
and articulated in his intent.
b. Collaborative Working. An effort is made to harmonise the activities, effects

and objectives of all the elements of power in the JIMP12 framework so that all
efforts are complementary and integrated towards common objectives and end-
states. This may occur under formal arrangements or informal arrangements.
c. Comprehensive Response. The activities and effects of all the elements of the
JIMP framework are to be applied to all the relevant elements, systems and
entities that are at work in the environment, be they political, social, military,
economic, etc, in a holistic approach to the situation.13 Furthermore, there
occurs continuous assessment as to how campaign activities will affect each of
these systems and entities and how they will in turn affect one another.
61. Within the campaign environment different groups will co-exist either peacefully or
in competition with each other based on religious, ethnic, political, ideological or clan/tribal
lines. Human perceptions of issues of economy and security will affect the behaviour and
thinking of the population. Cultural factors are dynamic and present both obstacles and
opportunities. Knowing the groups, what relationships exist between them, how they relate
to the infrastructure and how each group will respond to an activity is critical to success.
62. In general, four fundamentals should be considered in applying a comprehensive

approach:
a. A Proactive Approach. Ad-hoc relationships formed at short notice in response

to a developing crisis prove problematic and although at times unavoidable, do
not produce the best results in the shortest order and prove difficult in overcom-
ing prejudices and previously held misconceptions. Rather, a comprehensive
approach should be supported by standing agreements and strong personal and
institutional relationships and early, shared analysis of an environment and bat-
tlespace.
b. Shared Understanding. A shared understanding of the strengths, limitations,

aims and cultures of each element within the comprehensive approach to a cam-
paign will allow a harmonised and complementary application of capabilities.
Secondly, a share understanding of the operating environment and the threats to
198
lasting stability security will again help ensure a harmonised and complementary
approach to the campaign across the various elements of power.
c. Outcome or End-State Based Thinking. The unifying theme should serve to

focus the elements within the comprehensive approach and ensure that activities
conducted by all elements within the comprehensive approach are based on, and
judged on, the achievement of progress towards the agreed objectives and end-
state. Each undertaking by an element of power should be considered against
how it might further progress towards the end-state.
d. Collaborative Working. The comprehensive approach demands that military

and non-military institutions – be they national or indigenous – work together
with trust, transparency and personal investment in order to be successful. This
must be fostered at all levels. Whilst some elements and their leaders, particu-
larly those not familiar with the military, will not be comfortable with a col-
laborative or highly cooperative relationship, effort must be made to insure, at
the very least, a coordinated and de-conflicted coexistence is established vice a
mutually exclusive relationship. In such circumstances, the onus may fall upon
the military commander to foster and engender, through dynamic, engaging and
generous personality, an atmosphere of cooperation.
63. It should be noted that the levels of authority, experience, technical ability and
understanding of the personnel within these, largely civilian, organisations might not
always correspond to that of the land force. This will inevitably introduce frictions, and
uncertainties, which may exacerbate personality and institutional difficulties. Nor will a
formal command relationship likely exist between military and non-military agencies. The
commander has a key role to play in harmonizing these relationships. When collaboration is
achieved, significant advantages will include to:
a. more accurate, shared situational awareness;
b. easier identification of, and agreement about, outcomes;
c. earlier identification of emerging opportunities as an operation progresses;
d. improved capacity for mitigating undesirable consequences; and
e. more efficient use of resources.
Understanding Effects
64. General. To succeed in this environment commanders must recognize that the
activities they undertake will create effects that cannot be viewed in isolation. Applying
physical force requires an increasingly precise ability to find, fix and strike targets, while at
the same time avoiding unintended consequences that may be counter-productive, such as
collateral damages. Many campaigns require military commanders to consider activities in
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Annex B
relation to more than simply an enemy force. Success in a complex environment requires
that they understand the creation of effects and the range of elements and systems within the
environment that affect the successful conclusion of a campaign.
65. End-States and Objectives. At all levels, activities create effects that in turn support
desired objectives and thus end-states:
a. Strategic End-state. The desired situation derived from Policy direction. It is

realised by the achievement of strategic objectives. A strategic end-state will be
multi-faceted and a military objective and end-state will only be a part of it.
b. Strategic Objective. A constituent of the desired strategic end-state realised

through the aggregation of agreed circumstances and conditions, specific to a
particular element of power involved in meeting the strategic end-state. Once all
objectives are realised, the strategic end-state will have been achieved.
c. Military Operational End-state. The desired and enduring military situation

derived from strategic direction, brought about by the campaign, taking into ac-
count the end-state and objectives of the other instruments of power. It may be
reached before the strategic end-state is reached. Upon achieving it, the military
involvement in a campaign may cease or be reduced substantially.
d. Operational Objective. A constituent of the desired operational end-state

realised through the aggregation of one or a number of inter-related effects.
e. Tactical End-State. The tactical situation once a tactical mission has been
completed. It is described in the concept of operations paragraph of an tactical
order for a specific mission.
f. Tactical Objective. A constituent part of the tactical end-state and the immedi-
ate aim of a tactical mission as described by the mission statement. They result
from the achievement of a tactical effect or group of effects resulting from tacti-
cal activities (see below).
66. Effects. Effects are defined as: changes as a result or consequence of actions,
circumstances or other causes. An effect may be a physical or cognitive result of an activity or
series of activities, that may be military or non-military. Effects can be categorized as follows:
a. Direct Effects. Direct effects are the consequence of activities (weapons employ-
ment results, populace informed through leaflets, etc.), unaltered by interven-
ing events or mechanisms. They are usually immediate and easily recognisable.
Direct effects occur within the same system or group targeted.
b. Indirect Effects are the consequences of an activity that occur as a result of

the application of a direct effect that is removed in time or purpose from the
initial point of application and target. They occur in a target that was not the
200
object of the activity. For example, if a successful attack on a village occupied

by insurgents convinces insurgents in another village to withdrawal, the latter
is an indirect effect. Indirect effects may be difficult to recognize, due to subtle
changes in behaviour that may hide their extent or their unanticipated nature.
c. Intended and Unintended Effects. Intended effects are those that are planned
in relation to the activities conducted and support the desired objective. They
may be direct or indirect. Unintended effects are those that were not foreseen
and/or desired by the related activities. They may be direct or indirect and will
likely undermine the attainment of the desired objective.
d. Second, third and subsequent order effects. These are the intended effects that
relate to consequences of a direct effect. As an example, dropping leaflets has
the direct effect of causing enemy soldiers to desert. The intended second order
effect is that their unit’s combat power is reduced or becomes ineffective and a
third order effect that the commander’s loose confidence and morale. Note that
these subsequent effects cross between the cognitive and physical planes.
67. Actions. Actions are assigned by the joint/operational level of command to the
component level command in order to create the desired operational level effects. They are
issued as missions and are conducted through a series of planned activities.
68. Activities. Once an action/mission is assigned to a component, it issues activities.

Activities are tactical level undertakings, that is, missions, assigned to formations and units
and are realised through tactical tasks and effects. In line with the Continuum of Operations
construct, activities are classified as offensive, defensive, stability and enabling. The construct
of a mission statement clearly articulates the tactical level effects that are required by an
activity. 14
69. Unpredictability of Effects. Note that effects are at times caused by circumstances
that are beyond the foresight or control of a military commander and result from the
unpredictable dynamics of systems within the environment. Thus, in such situations, an
effects-based approach demands that a commander simply work through the situation and
mitigate the undesired effects that could not be foreseen or avoided.
Effects Taxonomy And Planning An Effects Based Approach

70. An effects-based approach to operations may be defined as: The way of thinking
combined with specific processes that enable the realisation of strategic objectives through the
integration and effectiveness of the military contribution within a comprehensive approach.
It plans activities to create desired effects in support of objectives, and complements military
activities with those of other elements of power, in consideration of the complexities of the given
environment. It is a process that focusses on outcomes, objectives and end-states, and the
effects, created through activities, need to realise them. It is a philosophy supported by
methodology.
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Annex B
71. In order to properly apply effects there is a requirement for an analytical approach
using the coordinated application of the full range of military and non-military capabilities,
to undertake activities and create effects. These effects are assessed and adjusted against pre-
determined measures of effectiveness (MoE), which ask the question, “Are we doing the right
things to create the desired effects”. The effects in turn lead to objectives, achieving the desired
end-state. Adjusting the effects and the activities used to create those effects, based on the
assessment feedback, is vital to the implementation of this approach.
72. In planning operations and articulating outcomes, commanders must clearly

understand and express: the end-state; the conditions needed to achieve it, that is, their
objective(s); the effect(s) required to achieve the objective(s); and those activities required to
create the effect(s). (See figure below). Thus, in execution, activities are conducted to create
desired effects that realise objectives, which in turn, support desired end-states.
ENDSTATE
OBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE
EFFECT EFFECT EFFECT
ACTIVITY ACTIVITY ACTIVITY
Figure 5-4. The Effects Based Approach
73. Although the construct of activities creating effects leading to objectives is applicable
at all levels of command, the link between its application at operational and tactical levels is
through allocated missions. At the joint and operational level, the following taxonomy will
be applied:
a. operational objectives that support the end-state will be identified;
b. effects will be articulated in order to support these objectives;
c. these effects will be allocated to the component commands (eg, to the land
component of the joint force) as actions to be undertaken. These will be issued
as missions;
d. the missions will be executed through a series of activities assigned to subordi-

nate elements of the component command.
202
END-STATE
OPERATIONAL OPERATIONAL OPERATIONAL

OBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE OBJECTIVE
OPERATIONAL OPERATIONAL OPERATIONAL

EFFECT EFFECT EFFECT
Assigned to Component
ACTION Command
(MISSION)
ACTIVITY ACTIVITY ACTIVITY
Figure 5-5. The Effects Based Approach Applied Between Operational and Tactical Levels
74. At the tactical level, an effects-based approach is practised through the manoeuvrist
approach (see below), applied on both the physical and moral/cognitive planes, so that a
combination of complementary physical-effects activities and influence activities are used
to achieve desired objectives. Furthermore, the standard orders process and the principle of
Mission Command remain relevant and the expression of effects is already a constituent part
of a well-constructed mission statement. Indeed, an effects approach helps to more clearly
define the commander’s intent and to focus the force on achieving it.
Key Elements Of An Effects-based Approach

75. An effects-based approach to operations acknowledges that conflicts and campaigns
in the contemporary operating environment involve a wide variety of sources and issues, and
require a wide range of capabilities and activities in order to influence and affect their causes
and actors, including the indigenous population. In order to consider and incorporate all
elements and entities that influence the operational situation, the following are key elements
for an effects-based approach:
a. Knowledge Base. An effects-based approach to operations is predicated on a

sound understanding of the battlespace and the actors, factors and influences
within it. Information and intelligence collection must be expanded in order to
incorporate and assess the various elements and entities that inter-relate within
203
Annex B
an environment – the political, military, economic, social (including cultural

and religious factors), infrastructure and informational entities15.
b. Comprehensive Approach. A comprehensive approach seeks to incorporate all

the elements of power working to reach the strategic end-state and harmonise
them, their capabilities and their activities. It seeks to address all the systems
and influences within an environment that may have in impact upon long term
stability. It comprises of: a unifying theme; collaborative working; and, compre-
hensive response.
c. Measures of Effectiveness16. A measure of effectiveness is defined as: a criterion

used to evaluate how a task has affected selected system behaviour or capabilities over
time. Measures of effectiveness indicate if the right things are being done in or-
der to create the desired effects. They are generally subjective and depend upon
the situation and campaign. They are used to confirm that the correct activi-
ties are being undertaken and to adjust activities as necessary to achieve desired
objectives.
76. Application of an effects-based approach to operations simply expands the current

operational planning process and campaign prosecution in order to incorporate a broader
scope of information, elements of power, capabilities, application and assessment in order to
reach operational and strategic end-states in complex environments.
Applying An Effects Based Approach

77. The methodology for an effects based approach to planning, execution and
assessment continues to develop. However, the philosophy is widely understood and the
concept is not a new one. Good commanders have intuitively understood and applied a wide
range of effects against all the elements in an environment that impact the overall objective.
The Land Force effects-based approach is exercised through a number of means:
a. the adoption of campaign themes as articulated in the Continuum of Opera-

tions, that acts to focus operations on long term outcomes and end states. The
campaign theme, along with the guiding principles for that particular type of
campaign, inform the commander as to the balance required between physical-
effects activities and influence activities, that is, between effects on the physical
plane and effects on the cognitive plane;
b. the Joint, Inter-agency, Multi-national, Public (JIMP) framework, that harnesses

the efforts and capabilities of other players within the operating environment in
order to reach common end-states;
c. consideration of all the systems or entities that exist in a complex environment

that impact upon the overall situation and successful conclusion to the cam-
paign. These systems and entities, or at their general classifications, will help
identify lines of operation for the campaign (eg, economic development);
204
d. a comprehensive targeting the considers the whole range of targets and target
audiences within an environment together and plans their engagement using the
full range of lethal and non-lethal capabilities to create complementary effects
on the physical and cognitive planes; and
e. the adoption of measures of effectiveness, that allow continuous assessment of

progress across a wider range of campaign lines of operation.
With these tools the commander conducts his operations in a more comprehensive manner
using the full resources available across the full breath of lines of operation.
78. This concept of comprehensiveness in all aspects of the plan and its enables
commanders to more effectively address all aspects and influences of their battlespace and
environment by incorporating in a synchronised and complementary fashion operations on
both the cognitive and physical planes.
Effects Based Approach As Part Of Campaign Planning

79. In incorporating an effects-based approach to the extent that operational outcomes
can be translated into coherent tactical activity, existing tactical procedures, terminology and
practice can be seen as complementary to effects-based practice at all levels of command. The
significance of the Commander’s unifying theme continues and it is this theme that provides
the focus for the campaign plan, which in turn enables operational design. Operational art,
intuition and command will still have a major part to play, especially in uncertain conditions
and in those situations where there is a compelling need to act. In all circumstances, it is
anticipated that operational freedom of action will be preserved and this is necessary for there
will always be gaps in knowledge and a commander’s intuition will still be required. Indeed,
regardless of the lengths to which commanders and staff may go to anticipate all the actions
and reactions of the systems in an environment, there remain too many variables, not the
least of which are individual personalities and motives, to allow an accurate prediction of
all cause-and-effect relationships. Thus, commander’s intuition and responsiveness to the
unforeseen will remain key to successful operations.
80. The application of an effects-based approach is pervasive at all levels throughout

the planning and execution of operations, from the campaign plan downwards. Whilst
the strategic direction gives the long-term perspective, the campaign plan will provide the
medium-term framework, focussing on an operational end-state, constituent operational
objectives and required effects. The near term to medium term gap is covered through
operation plans that issue the activities that create the desired effects.
81. An effects-based approach to campaigns and operations will not alter the process of
campaign design and planning but only provide it with better focus and measurable progress.
Terminology for campaign design will remain extant, but the application of it, on both the
physical and cognitive planes, will have to be conceptually expanded. The steps involved in
an effects-based approach are the same as those in campaign planning and the operational
205
Annex B
planning process, however the scope of these planning processes will need to broadened, in
order to fully encompass all the disparate, yet inter-connected components pertinent to the
situation. In other words, they will have to be comprehensive and plan for both physical and
cognitive effects, in a simultaneous and complementary fashion, as required by the campaign
and its environment.
82. Once the commander has conducted his visualization of the operation and
developed a unifying theme in his intent, and confirmed his end-state, he can identify the
objectives to achieve the operational end-state and then decide required effects that must be
applied to realise those objectives. The identification of the objectives will then determine
the lines of operation required that will lead to each of the objectives. Effects will then be
decided along each line of operation, possibly described as decisive points17. These may be
issued to staff or subordinates as either planning guidance or in orders.
83. A campaign design will include a number of lines of operation that lead from the
current state of affairs and disposition – physically and conceptually – to the operational end
states. The lines of operation will link assign activities that create the desired effects, that lead
to objectives that together constitute the end-state. Effects along these lines of operation may
be described as decisive points that must be reached en route to their respective objectives.
Since they support an objective, they may also be termed, supporting effects. A centre of
gravity analysis remains important in campaign planning, but it must be assessed with a
greater understanding of the nature of the complexities of the environment. In assessing a
centre of gravity at each level of command, it must be remembered that they may be physical
or moral centres of gravity, and they are based on people, be they groups or individuals.18
While centres of gravity may be identified and targeted in due course, lines of operation
should focus on achieving the desired end-state through the attainment of key objectives.
84. In the early stages of a campaign, the military may assume a role in each or at least
most, lines of operation. As a security situation improves, the responsibilities for non-security
related lines of operation should be passed to those other agencies best suited to conduct
them. For example, initial reconstruction of infrastructure may fall to the military. However,
as the security situation improves and other government agencies and NGOs arrive in
theatre, such responsibilities should be assumed by them.
85. Lines of operation in many campaigns in a complex operating environment will

incorporate a large array of objectives, effects and activities. They will include diverse, but
inter-related aspects such as security, governance and development. Some will be prosecuted
by a single element of power whilst others, such as governance, will be shared by several
agencies, none of which may be military.
206
Line of Operation Op Objective 1: Interim Governance Provided OPERATIONAL

Theme 1: END-STATE
Governance Op Objective 2: Self-Governance Established
A lasting peace in
which the threat of
Line of Operation Op Objective 3: Secure Environment violence and civil
Maintained war has been
Theme 2:
Op Objective 4: Self-Sustaining Security
removed and Nation
Security Established X has stable political
structures,
supported by
Line of Operation Op Objective 5: Electoral Process Reformed reliable
Theme 3: infrastructure,
Political Process
Op Objective 6: Elected government governance and
Empowered
regional leaders,
providing prosperity
Line of Operation Op Objective 7: Key Infrastructure and security for all
Restored of its people.
Theme 4:
Op Objective 8: Sustained Infrastructure
Reconstruction Established
Current Situation Operational Favourable Situation

Centre of Gravity
Near Civil War Enduring Peace
Clan Y & Their Support for Central
Government
Figure 5-6. An Example of Lines of Operation as Part of a Campaign Plan.
Governance Security Political Process Reconstruction

Interim Self- Secure Self- Electoral Elected Key Sustained
Governance Governance Environment Sustaining Process Government Restoration Infrastructure
Provided Established Maintained Security Reformed Empowered Established
Transitional Military Provincial Militia B Electoral Government Essential Equitable
government control capitals repatriated process structures services re- control
is reformed secured designed reformed established achieved
established in all areas
Provincial Police Border Military Ethnic Political Resource Accountability
governments control crossings trg re- leaders oversight infra- procedures in
re- reformed secured established engaged of security structure place
established institutions secured
Economic Militia B Police Interim Enduring

reforms for deterred trg re- control of infrastructure
distribution established resources re-built
achieved
Militia B Sustained
defeated growth
Figure 5.7. Sample Supporting Effects for Operational Objectives and Lines of Operations
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Annex B
86. Commanders may not necessarily have all the integral resources required to
generate the effects they envision. By leveraging and synchronizing the resources and
capabilities across the JIMP framework, they can produce the right combination of effects on
the right lines of operation to lead to the desired end state. This places particular emphasis on
the collaboration required at all levels with JIMP participants. Some lines of operation may
be conducted by only the military, others will be the sole responsibility of other agencies, and
others may be shared between the military and others. In either case, a campaign seeking to
establish enduring solutions for conflicts in complex environments must accept a long-term
view and the requirement for a range of instruments of power to be employed.
Effects-based Approach At The Tactical Level:

The Manoeuvrist Approach
87. In practical terms, activities are conducted to generate effects aimed at achieving
objectives. These activities, assigned as tasks, may be physical or influencing in nature to
produce effects on the physical or cognitive planes. While the term objective has commonly
been used to refer to a physical object against which action is taken, in an effects-based
approach an objective may be something far more abstract, particularly if the it is on the
cognitive plane.
88. At the tactical level, the standard orders process and the principle of mission
command will remain relevant. The desired “effect” of a mission statement is issued in the
tactical task (often as a first order effect, eg seize) and in the purpose of the tactical task (in
order to….), which may be a second order effect.19 Mission command allows a subordinate
commander to assume tasks in support of achieving the desired effects.
89. The principles underlying the manoeuvrist approach remain appropriate at all
levels and dovetail neatly within an effects-based approach. The effects based approach
is applied at the tactical level through the manoeuvrist approach. The manoeuvrist
approach traditionally incorporates three core activities and effects: attacking will; shattering
cohesion; and shaping understanding. In applying the manoeuvrist approach to both the
physical and cognitive plane, a wider conceptualisation must occur. In understanding this
application, it must be remembered that when applied to certain target audiences, such as a
friendly or neutral audience, activities may be undertaken to shape understanding, but in an
effort to strengthen will and enhance cohesion. It sees idea of manoeuvre applied on both
the physical and moral/cognitive planes. Thus, for example, a COIN campaign plan may
envision attacking key insurgent strongholds in order to undermine his will and cohesion
(manoeuvrist approach on the physical plane) while providing better economic and social
development for the local populace, and advertising these activities quickly in the local media
(manoeuvre on the cognitive plane to shape understanding and engender support from the
populace).
208
End-State END-STATE
Planning Process
Objectives OBJECTIVES
MoE
Tgt is Tgt is
Cognitively
Physically
Altered
Effects Altered (Acts the
(Cannot Way You
Act) Want)
2nd
Order
Effects Influence Activity
Physical Effects
Activities
Lethal Non- MoP Non-Lethal

Lethal
Figure 5-8. Activities and Effects on the Physical and Cognitive Planes Leading to Objectives
90. It is important to note that activities on the physical plane may have an impact on
the cognitive plane and vice versa. This emphasises the need to understand both the first
and subsequent orders of effects and to be aware of the possibility of undesired effects and
the need to work to avoid them. For example, while an assault on an insurgent element
in village X has a first order effect on the physical plane of the destruction of that force, the
second order effect, on the cognitive plane, is the increase in security of the local populace
and the increase in their confidence and sense of legitimacy of the campaign. If however, the
attack resulted in civilian deaths and significant destruction, then the undesired effect, on the
cognitive plane, will be the loss of support for the campaign amongst the local populace and
a loss of legitimacy for the campaign.
91. The degree of risk acceptance imposed upon the commander or that which he
considers acceptable, will in some cases determine the types of activities the commander will
apply to achieve his desired end state. For example the best means to defeat an opposing
actor in area X may be to improve the economic conditions of the local population.
However, the risk to agencies that can best affect this may currently be too high. Therefore,
physical-effects activities aimed at the opposing force may have to precede actions by
other agencies. In making this decision, the commander must weigh the potential adverse
effect of any collateral damage in conducting lethal, physical-effects activity against the
risk of casualties among the other agencies should they be employed first. Sequencing and
synchronization of activities and effects will be critical to the overall establishment of the
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Annex B
desired end state.
The Knowledge Base And The Spectrum Of Relative Interest

92. As discussed above, a broad knowledge base that defines and assesses all the
elements, actors and systems within an environment that may influence the outcomes, is a
key aspect of an effects-based approach to operations.
93. An effects-based approach is predicated on a sound understanding of the battlespace

and the actors and influences within it. It must be guided by an IPB process designed for
the complexity of the operating environment and includes modifying the way a campaign
planner and tactical commanders look at the adversary and all other factors, systems and
entities that affect the environment and a successful conclusion to the campaign. Hence,
it requires a broader classification of all the actors, that ranges from the adversary, through
hostile and neutral to friendly and allies, within the battlespace as they relate to the interests
and objectives of the friendly force. This has been labelled the spectrum of relative interest
and where these actors fit on it in relation to the desired end-state will weigh heavily on
the commander’s consideration of what effects he will apply to modify their position on
the continuum to align them with our interests. Some of these effects will be physical, but
many others, specifically those seeking to engender support from the target, will be cognitive
SPECTRUM OF RELATIVE INTEREST

NEUTRALS
ALLIES INACTIVE
HOSTILE
SUPPORTIVE ENEMY
UNSUPPORTIVE
FRIENDLY
SUPPORT FOR THE

MORE CAMPAIGN LESS
effects. They are all targets or target audiences for engagement, either on the physical plane,
the cognitive plane or both.20
Figure 5-9. The Spectrum of Relative Interest
210
94. The increasing emphasis within the Land Force on cultural understanding,
stemming from the need to engender support from local populations and to engage other
elements of an environment, is a recognition that there is a requirement to gain insight into
the cognitive plane, and the intent, motivations and relationships of actors and groups in the
battlespace, in order to out manoeuvre them or to move them, through an effect of influence,
to a position of acceptance, cooperation and even support. The assessment that leads to
this categorisation supports the targeting process, for each of the audiences on the spectrum
of relative interest is assessed with respect to how they may be influenced and moved to a
position of support or acceptance.
95. Each of the groups within an environment may be plotted along the spectrum
of relative interest, and an assessment may be made as to what activities are required to
either maintain their support or to move them to a position of support, that is, to produce
cognitive effects in support of the end-states of the campaign.
96. This approach must also recognize the paradigm shift in information acquisition.
While in major combat operations a significant part of the information required to establish
understanding by the commander may flow from national or higher echelon sources, in
peace support and counter-insurgency operations, this shifts toward a model that is more
bottom up, with soldiers in direct contact as the key source of information. In many such
circumstances, actionable intelligence regarding adversary targets and the motivations for
their support will come from contact with the local populace. Furthermore, such contact
will provide useful input for measures of effectiveness, particularly in terms of gauging
the reaction of the local populace to the campaign’s activities and conduct. Thus, an
understanding and application of an effects-based approach down to the lower tactical level is
critical to its overall success.
Fundamentals For An Effects Based Approach

97. The fundaments that guide an effects-based approach to campaigns and operations
are:
a. Long-term View. Commanders and planners must take a long-term view of the
campaign and the situation, to deal with the symptoms, and more importantly,
the underlying causes of the conflict and crisis. The solution to the base causes
will usually take a long time to create and secure. It is important that political
leaders understand this requirement as well.
b. Whole Environment. It must be realised that the environment in which a

situation and conflict occur is complex, adaptive and often unpredictable. The
environment must be viewed holistically and the influence of all systems and
actors with respect to resolving the conflict must be assessed and considered in
planning. The inter-related nature of the environment in which the adversary,
neutral and friendly elements interact must be considered. Commanders must
comprehend the relationships between activities and effects particularly in rela-
tion to the elements and systems of the environment.
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Annex B
c. Focus on End-state. Planning must focus on strategic end-state and objec-

tives, and operational objectives and the conditions needed to realise them.
d. Collaboration. All levels of command must work to create complementary

effects that work towards operational objectives.
e. Complementary Application of the Instruments of Power. The military

activities must be harmonised with the contributions of different instruments of
power (JIMP) and agencies within the battlespace and environment in order to
reach agreed objectives and end-states. Planning and execution must be done
within the context of the comprehensive approach.
f. Continuous Analysis and Assessment. Continuous analysis and assessment

must be done in a holistic, interative fashion to deepen understanding of the
environment and to modify the plan and execution as necessary to reach the
operational objectives. Staff and commanders must continually assess the ef-
fectiveness of activities in creating the desired effects, and adapt accordingly.
Assessment
98. The assessment element is a key component in an effects-based approach and in the
achievement of enduring end-states. Assessment remains the responsibility of intelligence
staffs, however resources and time must be dedicated to assessing the effect of operations on
all systems and entities within an environment. Assessment of effects on the cognitive plane
take time to measure and changes may be incremental.
99. Assessment assists the commander during execution in determining measures of

performance (MoP - are things being done right), and measures of effectiveness (MoE - are
the right things being done to achieve desired effects)21. Even if activities are done correctly
and measures of performance indicate successful completion of those activities, it will be for
nought in terms of achieving objectives if those activities are not creating the desired effects
necessary to realise objectives. The requirement of both types of assessment leads to the
requirement to establish a deliberate process, designed to assess progress in:
a. achieving end-state conditions;
b. accomplishment of operational objectives; and
c. accomplishment of activities.
100. Assessment is described in detail in Chapter 7, under targeting.
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Section 4
Information Operations
Introduction
101. Information operations are defined as: Co-ordinated actions to create desired effects
on the will, understanding and capability of adversaries, potential adversaries and other approved
parties in support of overall objectives by affecting their information, information-based processes
and systems while exploiting and protecting one’s own22.
102. Information operations (Info Ops) are not an operation unto itself. Rather, the
doctrinal construct is a collection of capabilities related to information. It includes a wide
range of activities, both physical and cognitive. Both seek to affect the understanding,
capabilities and ultimately, the attitude and will of a target audience. Thus information
operations includes a wide range of activities spanning, for example, from physical attacks
against enemy command posts, to building schools, to issuing media statements to running
a public radio station, all in order to affect information, capability, perceptions, will and
eventually behaviour.
103. Info Ops doctrine developed in the latter part of the 20th century to include a
wide and disparate collection of capabilities, loosely linked by a concept of information
control. It was motivated by rapid technological advances in information processes but
lacked a fathering and guiding holistic philosophy and set of principles. Reconsideration of
the doctrine has allowed it to be refined and disciplined, with the focus on those activities
that influence perceptions and affect motivations and behaviours. This section outlines the
broad Info Ops doctrine accepted across the NATO Alliance, but then refines it to focus on
activities that create effects on the cognitive plane.23
Core Activity Areas

104. Info Ops are conducted in three core activity areas: Influence Activity, which is
the primary means of influencing will; Counter command activity (CCA), which counters
information and command related capability; and information protection activity (IPA),
which safeguards friendly information, thereby affecting an adversary’s understanding. There
is no clear delineation between the three elements and each will impact on the others and
therefore must not be considered exclusive.
a. Influence Activity. Influence activity comprises any activity for which the pri-
mary purpose is to influence the perception and will of the target audience, be it
friendly or hostile. It may include the use of physical means such as demonstra-
tive fires to indicate intent and cognitive means, such as psychological opera-
tions (PsyOps). In either case, their effects are cognitive. Influence activities
may be stand-alone activities seeking a particular effect or they may be support-
213
Annex B
ing other activities. In short, these activities affect the information and percep-
tion of adversaries and others, and thus affect their will and behaviour.
b. Counter-Command Activity. Counter-Command Activity (CCA) seeks to

physically alter an adversary’s C2 capability. It affects the flow of information to
and from a decision-maker, thereby affecting understanding or influencing will.
CCA seeks, within ROE, to disrupt, degrade, usurp, deny, deceive or destroy an
adversary’s information, command, propaganda and associated systems, proc-
esses and networks. In targeting such systems, commanders must assess the
secondary and long-term effects24. In short, these activities affect the adversary’s
information capabilities and thus his understanding. In targeting such systems
commanders must assess the secondary and long-term effects. It may be bet-
ter to simply exploit information gained from a C4 system rather than destroy
it. Secondly, the impact of destruction of C4 systems must be considered in
relation to the long-term, adverse effects on civilian systems being used by the
adversary.
c. Information Protection Activity. Information Protection Activity (IPA) com-

prises any activity that prevents an adversary from gaining information relating
to friendly operations. IPA includes Operations Security (OPSEC), counter-in-
telligence, information security (INFOSEC) and counter- intelligence, surveil-
lance, targeting, acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR). The counter-ISTAR
function includes the technical and non-technical elements of an adversary’s
information gathering capability and may include preventing a third party from
receiving or relaying essential elements of friendly information (EEFI). In short,
these activities deny the adversary information and thus affect his understanding
and capabilities. They thus may affect will as a second order effect.
Key Activities Within Information Operations

105. Info Ops coordinates activity and is not a capability in its own right. The three
core Info Ops activity areas can make use of all or any capability or activity that can exert
influence, affect understanding or have a counter-command effect. However, there are
several capabilities, tools and techniques that form the basis of most Info Ops activity.
They include Psychological Operations (PsyOps), presence posture and profile (PPP),
OPSEC, Information Security (INFOSEC), deception, Electronic Warfare (EW), physical
destruction and Computer Network Operations (CNO). Clearly, many of these tools and
techniques, such as physical destruction, have a much wider application than Info Ops
(and when not used to support Info Ops the potential unintended effects of such activity
must be considered), but can be drawn upon by Info Ops. It is important to note that
only when tools and techniques are used directly to influence will, affect understanding or
affect a decision-maker’s C4ISR capability, they can be deemed part of Info Ops activity.
Furthermore, the activities are conducted based on the desired effect. Not every campaign
will utilise all the tools available.
214
a. Psychological Operations. The primary purpose of PsyOps is to influence the

perceptions, attitudes and behaviour of selected individuals or groups in accord-
ance with Info Ops objectives. Unlike Public Affairs (PA), PsyOps retains direct
control over contents, dissemination and focusses on a specific audience(s).
Effective PsyOps requires timely provision of resources, analysis and planning.
PsyOps products will utilise a wide variety of means including print, radio, tel-
evision, loudspeakers, face-to-face contact, the Internet, faxes, pagers and mobile
telephones.
b. Presence, Posture and Profile. The appearance, presence and attitude of a

force may have significant impact on perceptions and attitudes, particularly
on neutral or potentially adversarial audiences. This concept is applicable at all
command levels and all elements of the force contribute to it. It seeks to send or
support a message and thus create a perception that supports that overall objec-
tive. For example, the decision to wear berets instead of combat helmets and
body armour can make a considerable difference to the perceptions of both the
adversary and local people. The public profile of commanders at all levels will
impact on perceptions and therefore the public role of the commander must be
carefully analysed and opportunities used to transmit key messages. Command-
ers must understand and assess the attendant risk that accompanies any decision
regarding posture and profile against the need to send a particular message.
c. Operations Security. OPSEC is used to identify and protect information that

is critical to the success of the campaign and is described as essential elements
of friendly information. (EEFI). It aims to deny the identified EEFI to the
adversary decision-maker, thereby affecting understanding. EEFI will need to be
protected throughout its lifecycle and throughout the range of military activities.
Adversarial understanding and capability are targeted to maintain the security of
EEFI, using a combination of passive and active techniques.
d. Information Security. The goal of INFOSEC is to protect the confidentiality,

integrity and availability of information through a variety of procedural, techni-
cal and administrative controls. INFOSEC includes a range of measures that
are applied on a routine basis under the auspices of security policy to protect
information. INFOSEC encompasses elements of physical security, such as per-
sonnel and document security, and Information Assurance (IA) measures. IN-
FOSEC includes elements of physical security, such as personnel and document
security, and Information Assurance (IA). IA includes a range of electronic
techniques, such as Computer Network Defence (CND) and Communications
Security (COMSEC) incorporating Emission Control (EMCON), defensive
monitoring and technical inspection techniques, counter-eavesdropping, limited
electronic sweeps and vulnerability analysis.
e. Deception. Deception involves measures designed to mislead adversaries by

manipulation, distortion or falsification. Deception is a complex art, which
215
Annex B
demands considerable effort, a high level of security and coordination, and a

sound understanding of an adversary’s way of thinking. It is normally used to
dislocate the attention and combat power of an adversary but may be used as
part of information protection, that is, to conceal friendly force intentions and
capabilities. Deception will likely use a combination of physical means (such as
a feint or demonstration) supported by other information cues.
f. Physical Destruction. There are two main aspects to the use of physical attack
for IO purposes. First, attacks on command and control systems will affect the
capability of an adversary and thus his ability to apply will. Secondly, the use
of force in certain situations sends a strong cognitive message and consequently
will have significant psychological impact. Carefully applied force can play
a major role in coercion and deterrence and in reducing an adversary’s abil-
ity to exercise command. However, undue collateral damage and unnecessary
casualties will have an adverse effect on public support. This must particularly
be considered if the enemy is using civilian infrastructure to support his C2
requirements. If physical destruction is required to achieve the desired effect the
Commander must consider and balance the potential negative impact that it
may cause with the expected benefits.
g. Electronic Warfare. Electronic Warfare (EW) has wide application in military

operations. The effect of EW activity can be temporary or permanent and it has
the potential to minimise the use of force, hence avoiding unnecessary casual-
ties and collateral damage. EW will be used to affect critical information or the
systems by which it is transmitted. Electronic attack enables CCA and attacks
on Information Technology (IT). It also supports influence activity by enabling
deception and PsyOps, including broadcasts to target audiences. Conversely,
EW can be used to defend systems and information. Electronic defence, in
conjunction with spectrum management, contributes by helping to counter an
adversary’s CCA and protecting friendly use of the electromagnetic spectrum.
h. Computer Network Operations. The opportunity for, and effectiveness of,

CNO is proportional to the adversary’s dependence on Information Technology
(IT). CNO comprise attack, exploitation and defence:
1) Computer Network Attack. Computer Network Attack (CNA) includes

means to attack computer systems. Software and hardware vulnerabilities
allow computers, storage devices and networking equipments to be attacked
through insertion of malicious codes, such as viruses, or through more
subtle manipulation of data, all in order to affect the understanding and
ultimately the actions of the adversary.
2) Computer Network Exploitation. Computer Network Exploitation

(CNE) supports Info Ops by the ability to get information about comput-
ers and computer networks, by gaining access to information hosted on
216
those and the ability to make use of the information and the computers/
computer network itself.
3) Computer Network Defence. The purpose of Computer Network Defence

(CND) is to protect against adversary CNA and CNE. CND is action
taken to protect against disruption, denial, theft, degradation or destruc-
tion of information resident in computers and computer networks, or of the
computers and networks themselves. CND is essential to maintain decision-
making capability and confidence.
i. Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC). CIMIC25 is a coordination and liaison

function that facilitates operations in relation to civil authorities and non-mili-
tary organisations and leads to activities that support local authorities. Because
of their ability to inform, demonstrate, influence and compel, CIMIC related
activities are a key aspect to the Info Ops plan. It provides information in the
form of physical evidence of cognitive issues such as commitment and situ-
ational improvement and thus engenders support from target audiences. CIMIC
related activities therefore need to be coordinated within the overall Info Ops
plan, in terms of impacts upon civil audiences, their leaders and their informa-
tion systems in order to ensure that activities work to support overall objectives.
j. Public Information. The aim of public affairs (PA) or media operations is to

protect the credibility and legitimacy of operations and promote widespread
understanding, thereby gaining support for military operations while not
compromising EEFI. It communicates information to audiences, through the
medium of local, national and international media and other communication
means. Although PA is primarily focussed on informing and educating audi-
ences, its impact is much wider. It is therefore essential that PA staff and those of
other IO capabilities work closely together to ensure that a coordinated message
is delivered to the intended audiences. To avoid giving the false impression that
the media are being manipulated in any way, a distinction must be maintained
between PsyOps and PA26.
Targets For Information Operations

106. Based on the above, the activities listed under Info Ops may be classified as either:
influence activities; counter-command activities; or, as information protection activities.
In order words, they are activities that create effects on the cognitive plane or the physical
plane. Influence activities use either physical means and/or cognitive means to create effects
amongst target audiences on the cognitive plane in order to influence perception, attitudes,
will and behaviour. Activities classified as either counter-command activities or information
protection activities are physical-effects activities that create effects on the physical plane27.
217
Annex B
107. Targets for Info Ops may thus be grouped in accordance with the following table:
Influence Activities: Counter-Command Activities and

Information Protection Activities:
Targets on the Cognitive Plane
Targets on the Physical Plane
Human: Links:
• Political Leaders • Couriers and Dispatch Riders
• Religious and Social Leaders • Land Line
• Groups of a population, such as • Radio and Other Informational Links

tribes, clans
Nodes:
• Adversary Leaders/Commanders
• C2 Centres and Command Posts
• Adversary troops and sub-groups
such as conscripts • Physical Plant
• Satellites
Figure 5-10. Targets for Information Operations
Revised Doctrine For Information Operations

108. An analysis of Info Ops doctrine, its justification and its origins, conducted from
a historical perspective, indicates significant problems with the construct, its logic and its
application. Firstly, within the Info Ops construct as it developed, nothing, other than the
technological support of information processes and the types of nodes and links composing
command and control (C2) systems, was actually new. The idea of attacking and defending
C2 systems or the idea of influencing individuals or groups in order to alter perceptions, will
and behaviour, are not new concepts that developed only through information technology.
Many of the best examples of “information operations” occurred before the doctrine
developed or were conducted by militaries and adversary groups that lacked any such
doctrine28.
109. Secondly, those physical activities that are classified as counter-command and
information protection are, at their very essence, nothing more than offensive and defensive
activities, that is, attack and defence. Whether information if being denied to the enemy
through counter-reconnaissance activities, defence and security platoons deployed around
an HQ, or through computer firewalls and anti-virus software, it can all be classified as
defensive activities. Likewise, an attack against a courier, that is, a link in a C2 system, an
218
fighting patrol against a command post, that is, a node, an EW attack or a computer virus
launched to neutralise enemy C2 systems, may all be classified as, planned as, and conducted
as, offensive operations. Their subsequent classification as information operations was
unnecessary.
110. Finally, those capabilities and activities meant to influence cannot be considered
separately from other operations, for they themselves are operations, that is, they are tactical
activities undertaken to create desired effects. The deception of an enemy commander, the
use of flyers to convince conscripts to flee, the building of civilian infrastructure to counter
an insurgency and win the support of a populace, and other such activities seeking cognitive
effects are tactical activities that must be conceived, planned and targeted as part of an overall
plan, simultaneous with and complementary to, physical activities. Like physical activities,
they may be classified in the operational framework and described by their effects of shaping,
decisive or sustaining29. In other words, they will be conducting manoeuvre on the cognitive
plane.
111. In light of this re-assessment of Info Ops doctrine, the following outline construct
shall be considered Info Ops for Cdn Land Forces30:
a. Info Ops activities be considered only those that fall into the category of influ-
ence activities: PsyOps; presence, profile and posture; deception; CIMIC; and
public affairs. That is, Info Ops are physical and cognitive activities that create
first order effects on the cognitive plane.
b. Those activities previously considered counter-command and information

protection activities are to be considered simply as elements of offensive and
defensive operations and planned and conducted as required.
c. Info Ops, that is, activities that influence, are to be part of a G3 staff branch for
conduct and part of G5 staff branch for planning. Each staff branch may con-
tain specialist advisors, in such areas as CIMIC, PsyOPs and PA, for operations
and planning, but no staff branch should be specifically designated as an Info
Ops staff. All staff functions other than G3/G5 support and enable operations,
but do not conduct them. Thus, no specific staff branch other than G3/G5 have
Info Ops responsibilities. The G9 CIMIC staff branch may be deleted unless
used for purely liaison and information support functions. Specialist advice to
the commander will either be through the G3/G5 functions or come from the
commanders of those units and detachments conducting the operations, for
example, from a PsyOps detachment commander.
d. Influence activities are to be conceived, planned and conducted in unison with

physical-effects activities. In some ways they will be shaping, such as the issue
of PsyOps flyers to enemy forces, just prior to an assault, encouraging them to
surrender or the conduct of a feint to deceive the enemy. In other aspects, they
may be decisive, such as the re-establishment of key infrastructure to secure the
support of a populace.
219
Annex B
e. Just as combat arms units manoeuvre on the physical plane, influence activities
will be considered part of the manoeuvrist approach on the cognitive plane. Al-
though all units will play a role in creating influences (eg, the posture of troops
conducting framework patrolling or the use of EW to create deception), the ma-
noeuvre units for specific influence effects may be considered PsyOps, CIMIC
resources and PA. Manoeuvre on both planes must be considered together
in the creation of complementary effects and achievement of tactical and
operational objectives.
Information Operations (Influence Activity) Philosophy31

112. Land forces conduct activities to create effects in order to achieve military
objectives assigned. Info Ops incorporate influence activities that focus on achieving a
cognitive effect on key local decision-makers and groups by affecting their perception, will,
decision-making processes and behaviour. Although they create effects on the cognitive
plane, they are considered operations, in the same context as activities that create effects on
the physical plane. They may be classified using the same taxonomy: offensive; defensive;
stability; and enabling. They are conceived, planned and conducted simultaneously with
activities that create physical effects. Together they may be considered comprehensive
operations that consider the whole environment. As operations, they come under the
direct responsibility of the commander. This is fundamental to an effects-based approach to
operations and a comprehensive approach to operations.
End-State END-STATE
Objectives OBJECTIVES
MoE
Tgt is Tgt is
Cognitively
Physically
Altered
Effects Altered (Acts the
(Cannot Way You
Act) Want)
2nd INFO
Order OPs
Effects Influence Activity (INFLUENCE)
Physical Effects
Activities
Lethal Non- MoP Non-Lethal

Lethal
COMPREHENSIVE
OPERATIONS
Figure 5-11. Operations that Consider the Whole Environment
220
113. Failure to incorporate physical-effects activities and influence activities together,

that is, effects on both the physical and cognitive planes, will preclude the conduct of full-
spectrum operations.
114. Many of the influence effects sought by influence activities will be beyond the
capability and capacity of military forces, at least for an extended period. Thus, the military
will seek to conduct influence activities within the JIMP framework so that activities such as
reconstruction and economic development and the long-term solutions to a conflict may be
fully realised.
Principles In The Application Of Information Operations (Influence

Activities)
115. As with all types of military activities, information operations should be planned
and conducted based on certain key principles:
a. Commander’s Direction and Personal Involvement. The commander’s person-

al involvement drives Info Ops and exercises control over all Info Ops activity,
within a framework of timely decision-making and consultation up and down
the chain of command. Without the clear guidance of the commander’s unify-
ing theme and intent, the Info Ops effort will lack focus and will not achieve the
desired effects in harmony with other activities.
b. Close Co-ordination and Sequencing. The very nature of Info Ops and the
large, diverse target set means that there needs to be very close integration, verti-
cally and horizontally, within a command in terms of creating complementary
effects in support of common objectives. The issue of contradictory messages or
inaccurate information will undermine credibility and legitimacy. All Info Ops
plans and activities must be closely coordinated throughout the echelons and
ideally across multiple agencies. This is the responsibility of the commander, as-
sisted by targeting staff, advisors and subordinate commanders.
c. Accurate Intelligence and Information. Successful Info Ops must be founded

on good intelligence support and the development of a deep and broad knowl-
edge base in which all elements, systems and entities within an environment
may be assessed. This intelligence must include timely, accurate, and relevant
information about potential adversaries, the other approved parties, and the
operating environment. The Info Ops staff should work closely with the intel-
ligence staff to define requirements necessary to plan, execute, and assess the
effectiveness of Info Ops. Intelligence preparation of the battlespace (IPB)
should include analysis of human factors (including culture, religion, languages,
etc.), decision-making infrastructure and power structures.
d. Centralised Planning and Decentralised Execution. Due to the requirement

for close coordination of Info Ops activity, the principle of centralised planning
221
Annex B
and decentralised execution applies to Info Ops at all command levels. How-
ever, centralised execution may be required for certain types of targeted informa-
tion activities, when all involved force elements are required to adhere rigidly
to a plan, or when strategic assets are used. The approval level and process for
PsyOps messages must be as low and streamlined as possible in order to ensure
messages are timely and relevant to the environment at hand.
e. Comprehensive and Integrated Targeting. At the operational level, targeting

starts with a detailed understanding of the operational environment, its constit-
uent systems and entities, and the commander’s objectives. Commanders and
targeting staff identify Info Ops effects required to achieve the desired objectives
and a range of activities that, when integrated into the overall operation plan,
will achieve those effects. It is important to realise that any element of targeting
activity may influence a range of target audiences and create unintended ef-
fects. The targeting staff therefore has to analyse the impact of such activity and
propose appropriate measures to avoid or mitigate unintended effects. Info Ops
targeting must not be planned separately from the targeting of physical effects32,
but in conjunction with it so that effects are complementary.
f. Early Involvement and Timely Preparation. Info Ops planning must start
early, because both planning and execution take time and results can be slow
to emerge. Hence, a Commander’s intent and direction must be viewed right
from the start in relation to Info Ops capabilities and maintained throughout
the planning process. Planning and targeting staff and advisors need to be fully
involved in the planning process to integrate Info Ops within the overall plan.
g. Monitoring and Effects Assessment. The successful prosecution of Info Ops

relies on continuous monitoring and assessment of the short and long-term
effects of inter-related activities. This is achieved by the collection of all-source
intelligence and other feedback on the Info Ops activities. Measures of Effec-
tiveness (MoE) must be included in the Info Ops plan and are integrated in the
intelligence collection activities.
h. Establishing and Maintaining Credibility. In order for Info Ops to be suc-

cessful in creating influences on the cognitive plane, the source of the Info Ops
must have significant credibility in the eyes of the target audience. The cred-
ibility of a force may have to be established in a planned, incremental fashion.
If lacking credibility, a force will require the engagement of indigenous proxies
such as social or religious leaders who have established credibility with target
audiences, in order to broadcast the desired messages.
i. Timely Counter-Information Operations. Even the most effective Info

Ops plans will be frustrated in execution if deliberate actions are not taken to
counter the Info Ops actions of the adversary and neutral parties. This in-
cludes the passive and active measures used to protect friendly information and
222
information systems. With respect to influence activities, the advent of real-time

communications technologies forces the commander to constantly observe and
counter the enemy’s attempts to influence target audiences, locally and interna-
tionally. There are numerous examples, from Kosovo to Lebanon to Afghanistan,
of a militarily weaker opponent effectively conducting an Info Ops campaign
that has influenced foreign and indigenous populations. Failure to adequately
counter the contrived story in a timely and credible fashion can undermine not
only a public’s morale, but it can also bolster an adversary’s popularity, and rally
public opinion against the mission. Info Ops planning must dedicate resources
to monitoring adversary Info Ops and remain flexible enough to counter errone-
ous information. Timeliness is paramount and in terms of PA, the first side to
get their story out into the public domain often holds the public high ground.
Influence Activities And Their Targets – The Causal Relationship Of

Filters And Perceptions
External Influences and Internal Perceptions

116. To create effects on target audiences in terms of understanding, will and behaviour,
there is a need to understand the target audiences on the cognitive plane33. This includes their
personal perceptions, their filters and how to affect them. This is referred to as the causal
relationship- or cause and effect - which is understanding how to contribute to an effect(s),
and is far more difficult on the cognitive plane than on the physical plane.
117. It is important to appreciate that targets on the cognitive plane will act according
to their own interests, shaped by perspectives and values, which may be significantly different
from one’s own. As well, every activity on the cognitive plane will have a different response
time and a different set of information filters that can (potentially) alter the interpretation of
the message (see table below). These filters will differ with each situation and target and will
be a result of the target’s external influences and internalised traits and perceptions.
118. External filter variables include culture, society, family, media, government
institutions, and decision-making processes.34 External filters, therefore, include variables
that limit behaviour to what is socially, culturally, and legally acceptable, informed by
information sources such as media, government, group, and informal communications
networks. Internal filter variables include personal values, beliefs, hopes, fears, and
experiences. Without an understanding of these filters and their effects, messages or activities
may provoke unintended actions.
223
Annex B
Information Filters
External Influences: Internal Perceptions:
• Cultural Bias & Values • Values
• Social Pressures • Beliefs
• Family • Experiences
• Religious Institution & Constructs • Hopes
• Media • Emotions
• Group Dynamics
• Government Institutions
• Political Influences
• Decision-Making Processes
• Individual
• Group
Figure 5-12. Information Filters for a Target: Individual and Collective
119. Additionally, a decision–making process may be unique to an individual or group.

What appears to be a rational process to one person may seem irrational to another. The
rationale may have a cultural or religious basis or it may be unique to that one particular
personality trait, whether it is individual or shared.
120. All the filters modify information input to the target audience. Targeting must be
sophisticated enough to understand and manipulate, or at least work through, these variables
to achieve the desired effect on the intended target. They are a key consideration for Red
Teaming35 during the planning and war gaming process. Activities seeking to influence
must specifically focus on what and how the target perceives something within the environment
and be adjusted to suit it and achieve the desired effect. For example, a message delivered
or action taken by a military leader in a society distrustful of those in uniform may not be
effective. However, the same message, delivered by a religious leader or a civilian of similar
cultural background may gain the desired effect. Therefore, a significant effort should focus
on altering that environment or influencing perception through means specifically tailored
to the environment. The impact of influence activities is their effect on decision-making
processes.36
224
121. Care must be taken in deciding the activities to be undertaken to create desired
effects. Measures taken to intimidate, for example, may simply result in animosity and
hatred by leaders or local populations. Such reactions will be difficult to gauge, but a study
of both external and internal filters may help predict and mitigate such reactions.
122. In order to commanders and staff to plan activities to create the desired effects, it
is important that they make use of cultural advisors and experts. Just as commanders have
employed in the past political advisors (POLADs), they must consider the employment of
experts in social, cultural and economic fields as well.
Spectrum of Relative Interest

123. As discussed in an earlier section target types on the cognitive plane can be defined
along a spectrum of relative interest as it relates to achieving the end-state. This spectrum can
be broadly broken down into any number of groups that may be generally described along
the following lines: the adversaries; the inactive hostile; the unsupportive; the neutral; the
friendly but uncommitted; the supportive; and allies. The boundaries between these groups
may be blurred. Each group may be influenced in different ways using different activities.
The amount of effort and type of activity needed to influence them will depend upon the
situation, the relative size of the target audience, the disposition of the audience on the
spectrum (supportive to hostile), and the importance of ensuring popular support for the
success of the campaign.
124. In addition to the normal targeting process there is a requirement for additional
information when determining a target on the cognitive plane. These have been derived
from the CARVER targeting matrix37 as follows:
a. Criticality – criticality or target value, is the primary consideration. It refers to

how much its execution will alter the target attitudes, beliefs and behaviour.
b. Accessibility – how accessible is the target? Does the target require a direct or
indirect attack? If indirect, through what or who must the target be accessed?
What method, medium and delivery means will be more effective?
c. “Recuperabilty” - If changed, how long can the attitude, belief, or behaviour be

expected to remain consistent without reinforcement? What reinforcement will
be required?
d. Vulnerability - What is the degree of vulnerability? Will the objective be

achieved?
e. Effect – the target should only be attacked if the desired cognitive effect will be
achieved. The likely unintended consequences must be calculated and weighed
against the benefits. Will the attack be awful under current ROE?
225
Annex B
f. Recognisable– Can the target be easily accessed and not confused with other
targets or neutral elements? Will the desired effect of the attack be readily
apparent? Will the targeting efforts be transparent or easily recognized by the
target or other audiences? Will this recognition affect the credibility and legiti-
macy of the mission?
Offensive Information Operations: Op Archer, Afghanistan, 2006

A crucial component of COIN efforts in Afghanistan is persuading local popula-
tions that the authority of the Central government is legitimate and that the role
of coalition forces is one of security, not occupation. Islam plays a pivotal role in
Afghan culture and society. Furthermore, tribal and village elders occupy a central
cultural and religious leadership position in Afghan society and power structures.
Thus, offensive information operations in Afghanistan must target tribal and village
elders while being mindful of the role of Islam in the day-to-day lives of the local
populace.
In the spring of 2006 the CF incorporated a Muslim imam who is also a member
of the CF in select meetings with village and tribal leaders. Through recitation of
Koranic verse and Islamic prayers, the military imam used religious language to per-
suade Afghans that the Taliban do not hold the moral high ground, that the Islamic
government in Kabul is worthy of support, and that the Western forces in their
midst are not occupiers, but operate with the goal of establishing security and peace
within the parameters of an Islamic society.
The unique use of an imam to influence societal and religious leaders in Afghanistan
by the CF is a superb example of an offensive information operation conducted
on the cognitive plane. Undermining Taliban claims of moral superiority based on
religious piety was assessed by many as a critical step in defeating the insurgency,
particularly in the Taliban’s former strongholds in Southern Afghanistan.
Source: Graeme Smith, The Globe and Mail, p.A13, 12 June 2006.
The Messages And Messengers

125. The following points should be considered with regard to the way information
operations are conducted38:
a. influencing a target audience requires “delivering the goods” not simply sending
the message. Thus, if a promise is made it must be kept. If a message is sent, it
must be fulfilled.
b. cultural awareness is vital, and the threat often has more cultural credibility.
Ideally, key individuals or groups within a target audience receive the message,
226
accept it, and then deliver it or spread it through the larger audience. This will
add credibility to the message.
c. maintain message discipline and do not be thrown off by erratic media reports.
In short, the message has to be sustained to be believed and must be consistent
over time and across different levels of command.
d. central strategic theme is essential, however, subordinate themes and messages

(and deeds that reflect the message content) must be categorized, assigned, and
tracked against different target audiences. In the ubiquitous media environment
at least two cultures must be addressed: that of the threat/indigenous popula-
tion, and that of committed friendly forces.
e. mounting casualties put additional stress on troops and may lead to information
operation mistakes. They must be anticipated and proactively handled. Risks
may have to be taken in order to support messages and to keep them constant.
f. whichever news story breaks first will be pre-eminent, at least initially; therefore
publicize anything that lends credence to our operations.
Assessment – Measures Of Performance And Effectiveness

126. As with any military activity, the results of Info Ops are assessed using measures
of performance (MoP) (are things done right?) and measures of effectiveness (MoE) (are the
right things being done, to create the desired effects?).
127. MoP for Info Ops refer to the mechanisms of planning and implementation. They
can be viewed in the same manner as the delivery of indirect fire: reaction times; quality of
product; correct identification and assessment of target; and suitability of engagement means,
to name a few.
128. MoE refer to the desired effects and whether or not the activities conducted have
created those effects. All three types of Info Ops activity areas contribute to the achievement
of effects. Some of the activities of CCA and IPA are objective and measurable. Others,
particularly for influence activities, are more subjective and difficult to evaluate.
129. In influence activities, MoE are applied to activities and changes on the cognitive
plane. Given all of the individual and environmental variables in the human decision-
making process, developing MoE for Info Ops on the cognitive plane may be one of the
most daunting intellectual tasks facing a commander. Influence activities seek to work
through external and internal filters in order to either persuade or dissuade and thus affect
behaviour and action. Hence, the planning and conduct of these activities is an art requiring
the commander’s subjective feel for their affect. The results of these influence activities
require as defined a set of indicators as possible, in order to detect changes in perceptions,
attitudes and behaviours. These indicators need to account for the effect of the information
filters.
227
Annex B
130. MoE will vary significantly between missions and even within missions.
Commanders must clearly state the end-state and ideally any milestones on the path to that
end-state. MoE, using whatever means are most appropriate, measure and indicate progress
in the target audience towards that end-state. MoEs must be tailored to the specifics of not
only the overall change desired, but to the environment, that is, the commander’s AOO.
Because of the intangible factors involved and the subjective nature of influencing, the MoE
will almost certainly be subjective, and because behaviour influence is the aim, they require a
significant amount of time to determine effectiveness. Therefore, they must be assessed as a
set routine to attempt to recognise changes, trends and slight yet significant indicators. The
commander exercises judgement as to when an adjustment or change to an activity against a
target must be made in reaction to the measured effectiveness.
131. In order to overcome the difficulties in selecting and applying MoE for Info Ops,
some basic fundamentals exist that can aid in the development of useful MoEs:
a. Causality.39 A definitive cause and effect relationship must be established be-

tween the activity and the effect attempting to be measured. Given the cultural
and other variables/filters present, there has to be a reasonable likelihood that
the planned activity will create the desired effect. Secondly, commanders and
Info Ops staff must be able to assess any other extant factors that may be caus-
ing the effect other than their own activities. Likewise, they must ascertain if the
measured effect is merely coincidental.
b. Quantifiable.40 A MoE that can be counted helps to remove some of the subjec-
tivity that plagues MoEs on the cognitive plane. Quantification allows accurate
trend measurement.41
c. Observable and Attributable. When drafting MoEs, consideration should

be given to the possibility that all of the variables influencing an activity and
change in behaviour cannot be observed. The MoE must be able to recognise a
trend or change and confirm the connection or attribution to the activity. For
example, if the presence or absence of negative graffiti is being used as an in-
formal indicator of support for a campaign and military force in an urban area,
observers will ideally be able to ascertain: its timing, that is, when it was done;
its attribution to a particular group (political, criminal, military) and their mo-
tive, and whether it represents a minority or majority viewpoint; its attribution
in terms of cause, particularly if it appears as a reaction to a specific event or
action; and, its location in relation to the cultural make-up of the local environ-
ment.
d. Correlated to Effects, Objectives and End-States. Just as activities are planned

to support effects and objectives along a line of operation, MoEs should be
selected to correlate to the achievement of each effect and should be reflective
of the level of employment. Strategic Info Ops require measures that occur
throughout the length of a campaign and many MoEs at the operational and
228
tactical level will measure the incremental progress through effects and objec-
tives.
e. Flexibility. Although MoEs should be drafted at the planning stage they should
remain under regular review and commanders must be prepared to adjust them
as required. They must evolve as a mission progresses, particularly as the conse-
quence of their activities leads to the attainment of operational effects. Similarly,
MoEs are likely not transferable from mission to mission. Even if a mission takes
place in the same AOO the passage of time will force reconsideration of MoEs
previously employed.
f. Collection. The commander must possess the capabilities to collect the intel-
ligence necessary to employ an MoE and provide the direction and guidance to
do so. Plans must be made to collect and assess MoEs through all units in the
AOO. Collection may be assisted by other agencies, however, without a formal
command relationship, this may have to be done informally. Notwithstanding
this, other, non-military agencies may prove to be an effective gauge of progress
through Info Ops.
g. Relativity. Improvements sought in a given environment must be relative to the

specific environment and to what is considered normal for that particular envi-
ronment and culture. Expectations for situational improvement must be reason-
able given the starting state and the normal state of that particular environment.
Improvements to a situation that will make it relatively normal for that environ-
ment may come quickly; however, systemic improvements in absolute terms
may require cultural changes over a very long period of time. Expectations for
change and the related MoE should be set as incremental milestones so that
improvement can be measured and demonstrated as tangible progress over time.
132. Developing appropriate MoE to assess Info Ops on the cognitive plane is a very
difficult task. Willpower, perceptions, and beliefs are all less-than-completely-tangible
variables that defy simple measurement. Observing and measuring trends is one of the surest
ways of gauging a target’s attitude. Trends, however, require a definable baseline and this may
be impossible to identify.
229
Annex B
Information Operations: Op Archer, Afghanistan, 2006

The absence of domestic or international support for a mission can undermine both
the legitimacy of a mission as well as the morale of CF personnel. Therefore, one of
the tasks in-theatre commanders may be called upon to undertake is the education of
the domestic and international publics, most likely through the media. It may become
necessary to clarify policy or inform the public about a mission or a specific component
of that mission in order to explain its reasoning and to bolster support for the desired
end-state.
One of the dilemmas that confronted the Canadian government and military from the
outset of operations in Afghanistan was the disposition and disposal of enemy personnel
captured during combat. The typical foe encountered by the CF in Afghanistan does
not meet the definition of “members of armed forces” as established by the 1949 Geneva
Conventions, in that most do not carry arms openly, do not abide international laws
and customs of war, and are not readily identifiable by the wearing of a uniform or
distinctive insignia.
On 18 December 2005 the Government of Canada signed an agreement with the

Government of Afghanistan concerning the transfer of enemy captured in Afghanistan
by the CF. Five months later, Ottawa declared that captured al-Qaeda and Taliban
fighters would not be afforded formal PW status as defined by the 1949 conventions.
This policy, combined with concerns that detainees transferred to Afghan custody
would not always be treated in accordance with international human rights standards,
caused the Canadian media, some experts, and members of the general public to express
concern that Canada’s policies abrogated international law.
Despite declarations in parliament and in the media by the Prime Minister and Minister
of Defence, Brigadier-General David Fraser, Commander Multi-National Brigade
for Regional Command South in Afghanistan, felt compelled to clarify government
policy by granting an interview to a member of the Canadian media only days after the
detainee policy was announced. Brigadier Fraser covered all aspects of the Canadian
detainee policy to include: the role of the Afghan government; the fact that the spirit
of the 1949 Conventions was to be followed in dealing with detainees; and, the role of
respected international organisations such as the ICRC to oversee the handling. All this
reinforced that Canadian policy conformed to international law.
The actions of General Fraser involved a complex legal, policy, and moral issue,
targeted both the undecided and friendly components of the influence spectrum, and
simultaneously emphasised the sovereignty of the nascent democratic government of
Afghanistan.
Sources:
Paul Koring, “Troops told Geneva rules don’t apply,” The Globe and Mail, 31 May 2006
Graeme Smith, “General defends detainee policy,” The Globe and Mail, 3 June 2006.
230
Information Operations: Operation Iraqi Freedom,
Baghdad, Iraq 2003-2004
To be effective, offensive Info Ops must target an appropriate audience, be focussed

on a limited number of themes, and be timely. Technology allows almost immediate
diffusion of information and minutes can make a difference in countering or pre-
empting enemy Info Ops.
Colonel Ralph Baker, USA, commanded the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of
the 1st Armored Division in 2003-2004. 2 BCT’s AO encompassed the Karkh
and Karada districts of Baghdad. The operational environment in this AO was
extremely complex, given that the resident population is an amalgam of Shiite,
Sunni, Christian, secular business and academic elites, and the diplomatic district
of the Iraqi capital. Moreover, the AO encompassed Saddam Hussein’s hometown
of Kaddamiya, where a sizable pro-Baathist element continued to lurk. A final
complicating variable was the rumour-centric nature of Iraqi society.
Once it became apparent that US forces were facing a full-blown insurgency,
Col. Baker quickly realized that “IO (sic) is critical to successfully combating an
insurgency. It fights with words, symbols, and ideas, and it operates under the
same dynamics as all combat operations.” The greatest problem facing 2 BCT with
regards to Info Ops was that the insurgents consistently dominated activities on the
cognitive plane, successfully shaping the environment before US elements could
respond. Without fail, the various insurgent groups were able to engage the most
important mediums (television & internet) through the most important media
outlets in a rapid and effective manner, often before US or coalition Info Ops teams
could even begin to respond.
The Info Ops staff of 2 BCT took a number of steps to rectify the Info Ops
deficiency in the AO. In the first place, three broad categories of Iraqi citizens were
identified to lend greater focus to targeting. The groups were: those who would never
accept the coalition’s presence; those who accepted the coalition’s presence; and,
“the vast majority of Iraqi’s who were undecided.” It was this last group that was the
specific target of the majority of 2 BCT Info Ops, firstly because those in this group
were generally more susceptible to influence, and secondly, because a successful
insurgency only requires the acquiescence of a population, not outright support.
A final group that was targeted was 2 BCT’s own personnel, who were at times
demoralized by “inaccurate [and] slanted news” from US media outlets.
Once targets were identified and prioritised, two broad themes were adopted
to focus the information and messages that were critical to a successful mission
outcome: discredit insurgents and terrorists, and highlight the economic, political,
231
Annex B
social, and security efforts of the coalition forces. Next, synchronization of all
available brigade Info Ops assets was pursued to end counter-productive and often
conflicting messages (Info Ops fratricide).
Specific groups of targets within the “undecided” catagory of Iraqis were identified
so that they would in turn spread the message. These groups were the local and
international media, local imams and religious leaders, tribal and clan leaders,
governmental officials, and university and lower-level school leadership. This last
point is particularly important, for it is far more effective that someone from the
target audience spread the desired message because it is much more likely to be
accepted and trusted.
Finally, 2 BCT identified a number of measures of effectiveness (MoE) by which the
progress of brigade Info Ops could be evaluated. The MoEs are necessarily subjective
and lack rigorous quantification. Given that Info Ops on the cognitive plane seek
to influence people’s attitudes, this should not be surprising. Nevertheless, some
MoE is required. For 2 BCT, these included the number of accurate/positive stories
published or aired by all media sources, the number of negative press, the number
of tips provided by the local populace, the “wave” factor (who and how many local
residents waved to coalition troops during patrols), observance of the tone of graffiti
in the AO, the tenor of sermons at local mosques, and the willingness of the local
populace to openly work with coalition forces.
Although lacking an effective Info Ops doctrine, Col. Baker and his brigade Info
Ops team quickly developed an effective plan to counter and pre-empt enemy Info
Ops. Understanding that an effective Info Ops plan was critical to a successful
COIN operation, Baker and 2 BCT rapidly implemented Info Ops doctrine that
enabled the tactical leader, by providing a clear commander’s intent and end-state
goals. From their experiences, Col. Baker drew a number of essential observations
relevant to all Info Ops:
• Info Ops must tailor themes and messages to a specific target
• The press must be engaged; you have no influence if you do not talk to them
• Credibility and the ability to improve the quality of life of the local residents is
directly related
• Developing trust and confidence between your forces and local residents should
be a primary Info Ops goal. Hence, messages must be based on the truth.
• Commander’s vision and intent must be clear and concise.
• Messages must be few, simple, and repetitive
Source: Colonel Ralph Baker, “The Decisive Weapon: A Brigade Commander’s
Perspective on Information Operations,” Military Review, May-June 2006, pp.13-32.
232
Section 5
Manoeuvre Warfare
Manoeuvre Doctrine And Its Application
Definition
133. The concept of manoeuvre warfare is defined as:
A war fighting philosophy and approach to operations that seeks to defeat the enemy by shattering
his moral and physical cohesion – his ability to fight as an effective, coordinated whole – rather
than by destroying him physically through incremental attrition. (AAP 39).
134. The manoeuvrist approach is realised through the following activities and effects:
a. Attacking will;
b. Shattering cohesion; and
c. Shaping understanding.
135. Cohesion is seen as the glue that solidifies individual and group will under the
command of leaders. Cohesion allows military forces to endure hardship and retain the
physical and moral strength to continue fighting to accomplish their mission.
136. This manoeuvrist approach42 to operations seeks to attack the adversary’s will to
fight, and thus undermine and even shatter his cohesion, usually, but not necessarily, by
avoiding trials of strength, and targeting weakness. An adversary’s will and thus cohesion
may also be affected by the shaping of his understanding. If the adversary’s C2 ability is
neutralised, he will fail to understand his environment or misunderstand his environment
and thus lose his will and cohesion. Likewise, if conscripts are convinced to surrender or flee,
the will and cohesion of the entire adversary force are affected.
137. As a result, the focus is to defeat the threat by shattering his moral and physical
cohesion, his ability to fight as an effective coordinated whole, rather than by destroying him
physically through incremental attrition. It is equally applicable to all types of campaigns from
peace support through major combat.
138. In short, the manoeuvrist approach is applied across the physical and moral/
cognitive planes with effects occurring on both planes.
233
Annex B
139. Attacking the adversary’s cohesion, on both the physical and moral/cognitive
planes, is the key to manoeuvre warfare. It is done using both physical-effects and influence
activities. There are three approaches to attacking will and cohesion. These are, in order of
preference: pre-emption, dislocation and disruption.
Pre-emption
140. To pre-empt the threat is to seize an opportunity, often fleeting, before he does, to
deny him an advantageous course of action. Pre-emption relies on surprise above all and
requires good intelligence and an ability to understand and anticipate the opponent’s actions.
Its success lies in the speed with which the situation can subsequently be exploited. Pre-
emption is used to produce a sufficient and suitably located threat that: causes confusion and
doubt; destroys confidence by foiling the threat’s plans; and makes his intended course of
action irrelevant. Pre-emption denies initiative to the threat.
141. Whether offensive or defensive, pre-emption demands a keen awareness of time

and a willingness to take calculated risks that offer a high payoff. These risks may be reduced
with the benefit of intelligence derived from real time sensors that provide a more accurate
assessment of the threat’s true situation. Pre-emption can also be achieved by allowing
subordinates at all levels the initiative, consistent with the commander’s intent, to seize
opportunities as they arise.
142. Establishing air superiority or establishing control of the electromagnetic spectrum

at the start of operations can achieve pre-emption. On the cognitive plane, the threat can be
pre-empted by use of a proactive public affairs programme. This may also include actions to
secure the support or neutrality of third parties before the opposition can do so.
Dislocation
143. To dislocate the threat is to deny him the ability to bring his strength to bear. Its
purpose is much wider than disruption and goes beyond the frustration of the threat’s plans.
To dislocate is to render the strength of elements of the force irrelevant. It seeks to avoid
fighting the threat on his terms. This is done by avoiding his strengths and neutralizing
them so they cannot be used effectively. A dislocating move is usually preceded by actions to
distract the threat and fix his attention.
“It is through ‘distraction’ of the commander’s mind that the distraction of

his forces follows. The loss of freedom of action is the sequel to the loss of
his freedom of conception.”
Captain Liddell-Hart
234
144. Envelopments or deep penetrations into the operational depth of a threat, even by
small military forces, may cause dislocation of elements of the force by attacking reserves,
lines of communications and command and control networks. Deception can also be used
to lure the threat into making incorrect deployments, inappropriate use of reserves, and
inadequate preparations for operations.
Disruption
145. To disrupt is to attack the threat selectively in order to break apart and throw into
confusion the assets that are critical to the employment and coherence of his fighting power.
It is a deliberate act that requires sound intelligence. Its purpose is to rupture the integrity of
the threat’s combat power and to reduce it to less than the total of its constituent parts. Identifying
and locating the most critical assets may not be easy. Key strategic and military targets might
include command centres, high-value base facilities, air defence systems, weapons of mass
destruction, choke points and critical logistics and industrial facilities. This can be done
by getting into his rear areas (normally considered secure), seizing or neutralizing what is
important to him, surprising and deceiving him, presenting him with unexpected situations,
using psychological operations, and attacking his plans and preparations.
146. To attack moral cohesion, components of the threat force should be isolated from
their command and control. Opposing commanders should be cut off from their sources of
information. The lack of information will force bad decisions and cause loss of credibility,
motivation, and the will to fight for a “losing” commander. This creates a lack of faith in
threat leaders, so that their effectiveness and competence, as well as the legitimacy of their
cause will come into question. This takes away the threat’s sense of purpose and induces fear.
The ultimate goal is to produce panic and paralysis by presenting the opponent with sudden
unexpected and dangerous change or a series of such changes to which he cannot adjust.
147. Physical cohesion can be attacked by separating commanders from their subordinates
by severing, disrupting or jamming communications, attacking lines of communications,
destroying elements of the force and interfering with control measures.
235
Annex B
Historical Perspective
Operation Overlord, 6 June 1944
During the initial stages of the landings in Normandy, the Allies’ main fear was a
rapid and concentrated German counter-attack before the beachhead was secured.
Actions were taken to break the cohesion of the German response by pre-emption,
disruption and dislocation.
Pre-emption
Allied troops were parachuted into German rear areas and on the flanks of the
landings to seize bridges and other points vital to both sides. This denied mobility
to the German troops moving to repel the invaders. At the same time, Ranger and
Commando units were employed to seize key emplacements that dominated the
landings.
Dislocation
Part of Operation Overlord was the construction of the First United States Army
Group (FUSAG) under Gen George S. Patton. This army, an elaborate fake, helped
deceive the Germans into believing that the Normandy landings were a feint. The
plan used a minimal number of Allied troops to hold German reserves in the Pas de
Calais region. This dislocated the main component of the axis reserves so that their
full strength was not brought to bear against the Allied invasion.
Disruption
French resistance forces, carefully coordinated with Operation Overlord, destroyed

key portions of the railway net in France. At the same time, Allied air forces
bombed other targets on the lines of communications. This disrupted the German
transport system, and damaged the ability of the Axis commanders to redeploy their
forces to meet the Allied invasion, and to supply their forces in the field.
Application of Manoeuvre Doctrine

148. Manoeuvre warfare plays as much upon the adversary’s will to fight and his ability to
react to a changing situation, as upon his material ability to do so. It is an indirect approach
that emphasises a targeting of the adversary’s moral component of his combat power rather
than the physical component.
149. It requires a flexible and positive attitude of mind by commanders who must seek
opportunities to exploit threat vulnerabilities while maximizing their own strengths. The
236
focus is the threat’s Centre(s) of Gravity, the source of his freedom of action, physical strength
or will to fight, and how best to attack, neutralize or destroy it. It focusses on objectives and
end-states rather than actions and their immediate physical results.
150. The physical application of violence is still critical, but is conducted selectively.
Rather than conducting an operation as a toe-to-toe slugging match between two boxers, it
should be fought like a bullfight where a stronger opponent can be worn down, confused,
and disoriented by the picadors and the elusive and flexible cape of the matador until the
latter delivers the final blow with a thrust to the heart:
a. Operations should be dynamic and multidimensional. It requires a balance

between mass, time and space. By speed of action we attempt to pre-empt threat
plans, dislocate threat forces, disrupt his movement and his means of command
and control. Our combat forces are pitted against the threat’s strength only if
this is required to hold and neutralize the opponent’s forces, or to set up the
conditions for decisive action against a critical vulnerability. Normally our com-
bat power is directed against threat weakness, particularly against his cohesion;
b. Where possible, existing weak points are exploited. Failing that, they must be
created. Weak points may be physical, for example, an undefended boundary.
They may also be less tangible, such as vulnerability in passage of information.
They are often produced when a threat is over-extended or suffering the effects
of a high tempo of operations. Exploiting weak points requires agility, flexibility
and anticipation, and low level freedom of action;
c. Threat strength is avoided and combat power targeted through his weakness to
strike at his critical assets (lines of communications, headquarters, rear areas,
reserve forces etc.) directly. The image of water flowing over surfaces and gaps is
useful to understand the notion. Water runs off surfaces - threat strengths - and
pours through gaps - threat weaknesses to follow the path of least resistance.
This relates to the concept of gathering intelligence and searching and prob-
ing with reconnaissance elements to find gaps to “pull” combat power towards
weakness rather than “pushing” based exclusively on centralised direction from
the commander;
d. Tactical battles are not an end in themselves, but only a building block within
the framework of a larger campaign that uses surprise, deception, manoeuvre
and firepower to break the threat’s will to fight, primarily through attacking
moral and physical cohesion.
151. The concepts of manoeuvre warfare apply equally to activities, effects and objectives
on the cognitive plane. The effects should shape an adversary’s understanding, undermine his
will and shatter his cohesion. Manoeuvre through information operations, for example, may
undermine the support an insurgent or belligerent military commander receives from the
local populace or media. This will in turn affect the adversary’s will and cohesion.
237
Annex B
Manoeuvre On The Cognitive Plane: Affects On The Will, Cohesion

And Understanding Of Other Targets
152. In a conventional sense, the manoeuvrist approach sees the attacking of will
and cohesion of an enemy force. In many campaigns, there will be other audiences whose
understanding, will and cohesion will be vital for long term success of the campaign. These
will include local leaders, influential members of a society and the populace as a whole, or
key segments of it.
153. The will, cohesion and understanding of these groups and individuals must be
“targeted” as well in order to create desired effects. This may seek to undermine the will of
leaders opposing the campaign, or they may seek to enhance the understanding and will and
cohesion of neutral audiences or those supporting a campaign. Certainly during counter-
insurgency, a key aim will be to enhance the understanding of the local and international
audiences in order to reinforce their will to support the campaign and to counter the
propaganda of the insurgents.
154. Therefore, while commanders are adopting a manoeuvrist approach to attack the
will and cohesion of an adversary, they must understand that efforts must be made to shape
the perceptions, understanding and will of other audiences or targets. In other words, they
will manoeuvre on the cognitive plane. This must be done in a complementary fashion
to all other activities and the operations planned and targeted together in a harmonised,
simultaneous fashion.
155. As mentioned in previous sections, commanders therefore manoeuvre

simultaneously against a wide range of targets on both the physical and cognitive planes.
Much of the manoeuvre on the cognitive plane will be conducted through information
operations that seek to influence target audiences and create desired cognitive effects. This
cognitive manoeuvre will be used to pre-empt, dislocate and disrupt the Info Ops and
cognitive manoeuvre of the adversary.
156. All forms of manoeuvre, physical and cognitive, are considered operations and
are therefore the direct responsibility of the commander and his G3 staff branch. The
commander will strike the correct balance between physical-effects activities and influence
activities, that is, between manoeuvre on the two planes, based on the campaign theme, its
guiding principles and the need to create effects that will realise enduring objectives and end-
states.
157. Thus this concept of a comprehensive approach to operations becomes pervasive.

It begins at the strategic level with the JIMP framework being enabled, moves to campaign
planning using all instruments of power and focussing on enduring outcomes throughout
the whole environment and moves throughout all levels of command to manoeuvre at the
tactical level, creating physical and cognitive effects in support of the operational objectives.
238
Enablers For The Manoeuvrist Approach

158. The manoeuvrist approach to operations is enabled through:
a. a comprehensive effects based approach to operations that provides a unifying

theme and purpose (expressed in the commander’s intent) to all the elements in
a JIMP framework in order to address all the threats and consider all influences
faced in the operating environment (such as political, military, economic, social
to name a few), a clear articulation of the end-state and the objectives required
to realise that end-state;
b. identification of the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the threat;
c. identification of the adversary’s centre(s) of gravity and its/their relative impor-

tance to reaching the desired end-state;
d. the commander’s ability to conceptualise and direct the harmonisation of the

operational functions to create combat power on both the moral and physical
planes in a mutually complementary and supporting manner; that is, the actions
on the cognitive plane seek the same objective as actions on the physical plane;
e. in support of the above, harmonised targeting the considers the complementary

and synchronised application of physical-effects and influence activities
f. mission command; and
g. a unity of effort across all forces created through the shared understanding of
superior commanders’ intent, two levels higher.
Fundamentals Of Manoeuvre Warfare

159. Manoeuvre warfare is a mindset for applying combat power and resources to defeat
threats and address sources of conflict. There is no prescribed formula, however certain
fundamentals can provide guidance:
a. Concentrate on the Adversary’s Vulnerabilities. With the objective being to

attack the threat’s will to fight and cohesion, activities and their effects should be
planned along these lines. Plans should focus on exploiting the threat’s vulner-
abilities and not on seizing and holding the ground. The purist application of
manoeuvre warfare is to disarm or neutralize an threat before the fight;
b. Mission Type Orders. This involves de-centralising decision-making and letting

decisions be taken at the lowest possible level. It is essential that commanders
know and fully understand their commanders’ intent two levels up. Subordi-
nates must understand what is on their commander’s mind, his vision of the
battlefield and what end state is desired. Mission orders allow commanders, at
all levels, to react to situations and to capitalize as they arise. The commander
directs and controls his operation through clear intent and tasks rather than
detailed supervision and control measures or restriction;
239
Annex B
c. Agility. enables us to seize the initiative and dictate the course of operations
that is acting quicker than the threat can react. Eventually, the threat is overcome
by events and his cohesion and ability to influence the situation are destroyed.
Agility is the liability of the commander to change faster than the threat can an-
ticipate. Quickness and intellectual acuity are the keys to effective agility. Com-
manders must be quick to make good decisions and to exploit developments on
both the physical and cognitive planes. Commanders and units must be able to
respond quickly to physical developments, and to cognitive developments. Just
as a unit will move to exploit a sudden gap on the battlefield before the threat
can re-position to close it, a commander must be quick to exploit through infor-
mation operations a public relations error by an insurgent force. Getting inside
the threat’s decision cycle is the essence of tempo. Well rehearsed battle drills,
standard operating procedure enhance the agility of a formation;
d. Focus on Main Effort. Main Effort focusses combat power and resources on
the vital element of the plan and allows subordinates to make decisions that will
support the commander’s intent without constantly seeking advice. This way,
the commander is successful in achieving his goal and each subordinate ensures
his actions support the main effort. It is the focus of all, generally expressed in
terms of a particular friendly unit. While each unit is granted the freedom to
operate independently, everyone serves the ultimate goal, which unifies their
efforts. In certain campaigns, the main effort may be focussed on influence ac-
tivities in the cognitive plane while activities on the physical plane are support-
ing and may seek only to maintain a secure environment for other elements and
forces;
e. Exploit Tactical Opportunities. Commanders continually assess the situation

(mission analysis) and then have the necessary freedom of action to be able to
react to changes more quickly than the threat. Rigid control measures that are
interchangeable and unlikely to survive first contact are avoided. Reserves are
created, correctly positioned and grouped to exploit situations that have been
created by shaping the battle to conform to friendly concepts of operations;
f. Act Boldly and Decisively. Commanders at all levels are able to deal with
uncertainty and act with audacity, initiative and inventiveness in order to seize
fleeting opportunities within their higher commanders’ intent. They not only
accept confusion and disorder, they generate it for the threat. Failure to make
a decision surrenders the initiative to the threat. Risk is calculated, under-
stood and accepted. In doing so, commanders must keep in the foremost of
their minds, the overall objective. Notwithstanding this need, at times, tactical
success may have to be sacrificed in order to meet the overarching operational
objective; and
g. Command from the front. Commanders place themselves where they can influ-
ence the main effort and ensure that the desired effects are created to realise the
desired objectives.
240
Section 6
Mission Command43
Definition And Tenets
160. Mission command is defined as:
The philosophy of command that promotes unity of effort, the duty and author-
ity to act, and initiative to subordinate commanders.
161. It focusses on decentralised command and is intended for situations that are
complex, dynamic and adversarial. It allows for and accepts that the successful application
of surprise, shock and high operational tempo against an threat is best executed through
rapid and timely decision-making at all levels of command in response to the unexpected
or fortuitous occurrence of both threats and opportunities. In practical terms, activities are
conducted to generate effects aimed at achieving objectives. These activities, assigned as tasks,
may be physical or cognitive in nature to produce effects on the physical or cognitive planes.
While the term objective has commonly been used to refer to a physical object against
which action is taken, in an effects based approach an objective may be something far more
abstract, particularly if the it is on the cognitive plane.
162. It underpins manoeuvre warfare and the effects based approach with four tenets:
a. timely decision making;
b. the importance of understanding a superior commander’s intention;
c. a clear responsibility on the part of subordinates to fulfil that intent; and
d. determination on the part of the commander to see a plan through to a success-

ful conclusion.
Creating A Mission Command Atmosphere

163. Under the Mission Command philosophy, commanders must:
a. give orders in a manner that ensures that subordinates understand intent, their
own tasks and the context of those tasks;
b. provide those orders and tasks within the context of a unity of effort that is
shared horizontally and vertically within the formation;
c. tell subordinates what effect(s) they are to achieve and the reason why or pur-
pose, which may be a second order effect or objective. (Examples include, “seize
in order to ….”, or, “conduct security patrols in order to…..);
241
Annex B
d. allocate appropriate resources to carry out missions and tasks;
e. use a minimum of control measures so as not to limit unnecessarily the freedom

of action of subordinates; and
f. allow subordinates to decide within their delegated freedom of action how best
to achieve their missions and tasks.
164. Mission command applies to activities on both the physical and cognitive planes.
At its essence is freedom of action, trust and confidence. When all else goes awry and
subordinates cannot obtain new direction for the changing situation, they can always use the
commander’s clearly stated intent, with the desired end-state, to guide their decisions and
actions.
Unity Of Effort And Common Intent

165. Balanced against the tenets of freedom of action and decentralised decision-making,
is the requirement to harmonise all activities and effects within a unity of effort. Unity of
effort is vital for a force as it brings harmonises the actions of the constituent elements of
forces, at times both military and non-military.
166. Unity of effort stems from a number of inter-related means: the commander’s
ability to articulate a clear intent and mission statements; the use of common doctrine,
tactics, techniques and procedures; a common language of command; a high standard
of collective training and teamwork; and the designation of main effort44. In short, they
together generate a common understanding across a force and harmonise and coordinate
their actions, particularly at times of confusion and disorientation.
167. Within an operation, unity of effort is enhanced by subordinates understanding

the intentions both of their immediate superiors and of those two levels up. This vertical
integration allows subordinates to nest their own plans and activities within those of their
superiors. The unity of effort shared amongst subordinates gives horizontal integration and
allows subordinates to understand how their missions interact with those of others. A well-
established unity of effort also supports the manoeuvrist approach to operations.
168. Unity of effort is largely based on a commander’s explicit (stated) intent. It is

understood in the context of a common doctrine, language and training. However, a
complete unity of effort and mission command implementation must be based on the
establishment and maintenance of common intent: the sum of shared explicit intent as
expressed in a commander’s verbal or written statement, plus operationally relevant shared
implicit intent.
169. Implicit intent is understood through a web of shared connotations, that is, a
common understanding of doctrine, shared values and beliefs [culture], social norms and
expectations. In other words, it stems from the conceptual and moral components of combat
242
power and should enhance the unity of effort binding activities on both the physical and
cognitive planes.
Summary
170. An effects based approach complements the manoeuvrist approach and enables
commanders to more effectively operate on both the moral and physical planes. The
principles underlying the manoeuvrist approach remain appropriate at all levels and dovetail
neatly within an effects-based approach. As such, in incorporating an effects based approach
to the extent that operational outcomes can be translated into coherent tactical activity,
existing tactical procedures, terminology and practice can be seen as complementary to
effects-based practice at the higher levels of command.
171. As a result, the standard orders process and the principle of mission command
remain relevant. The significance of the Commander’s unifying theme continues and it is
this theme that provides the focus for the campaign plan, which in turn enables operational
design. Operational art, intuition and command still have a major part to play, especially in
uncertain conditions and in those situations where there is a compelling need to act. In all
circumstances, it is anticipated that operational freedom of action is preserved.
Notes
1. Material taken from Draft Chapter 5 of Conduct of Land Operations – Operational Level Doctrine
for the Canadian Army (B-GL-300-001/FP-000). Produced by Land Force Doctrine and Training System
Directorate of Army Doctrine.
2. For example, the failure to protect a civilian populace from exploitation or targeting will result in
a loss of legitimacy and loss of popular support for the mission and force.
3. The term effects is used widely throughout this publication and doctrine in general. For purposes
of Canadian Land Force doctrine, the term effects is SYNONYMOUS with results.
4. Moral plane and cognitive plan may be used interchangeably as long as the use speaks to affecting
a target’s will and in turn behaviour and actions. The use of the term “moral plane” may cause some conceptual
or intellectual challenges when dealing with cultures, societies and individuals that do not stem from or practise a
Judeo-Christian tradition.
5. For example, an artillery attack will reduce an adversary’s capability and thus have an effect on
the physical plane. It may have a secondary effect on the cognitive plane by reducing the morale and will of the
adversary and thus affect his behaviour.
6. In UK doctrine, physical activities are referred to as “Joint Fires” and include any physical activity
applied to create physical or cognitive effects. (See JDN 7/06) In US Army doctrine no distinction is made
however the doctrine supports similar concepts of undertaking activities to affect both capability and will of an
adversary. (See FM 3-0).
7. The posture and profile adopted by troops interacting with a local populace will have cognitive
effects. Their mere presence will show commitment to public security. Their conduct on patrols and at
checkpoints and their state of dress will provide certain signals that may engender or undermine support from a
populace.
8. This is the essence of the manoeuvrist approach to operations, that is, the attacking of will,
shaping of understanding and shattering of cohesion.
243
Annex B
9. Although forces would be unlikely to use psychological operations on their own troops, they may
launch internal public affairs campaigns in order to counter biased media reports and adversary propaganda.
10. An observation from the USMC Joint Urban Warrior 2005 noted that when insurgents are
killed or captured, local media coverage should be maximised in order to dissuade members of the local populace
from joining the insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, consideration of the issue would lead one to
believe that such a tactic could probably instil hatred vice fear in many members of the local population and thus
undermine support for the campaign and even encourage more to join the insurgents.
11. Despite the rarity of such situations examples of successful models include the British campaign
in the 1950s/1960s Malaya, and the Australian experience in the Solomon Islands.
12. Joint, Inter-agency, Multinational, Public framework incorporates all actors whose power and
influence will be involved in reached the strategic end-state. They involve other government departments and
agencies, NGOs, media and private enterprises. See Chapter 1.
13. The systems and entities that exist in an environment and that will interact and affect the
situation are often described by the acronym PMESI: Political, Military, Economic, Social (including religious),
Infrastructure, and Informational.
14. For example: in the mission statement, “A Coy will attack to seize Objective DOG by 1300 hrs in
order to secure a Line of Departure for B Coy”, the activity is to “attack”, the first and second order effects are to
“seize” and “secure”. Thus, the objective is to secure a line of departure and the tactical end-state will see A Coy
prepared to support B Coy and to support a fwd passage of lines. For more details see, B-GL-331-002/FP-000
Staff Duties in the Field.
15. Some allied doctrine refers to the environment as a collection of systems, identified by
the acronym PMESII. While all these elements represented in the acronym certainly exist in a society or
environment, and they do inter-relate and affect one another, it is believed that there are too many variables,
including individual personalities, to allow a scientific “systems approach” to constantly and accurately predict
exactly how they will react.
16. Measures of Effectiveness are done in conjunction with Measures of Performance. The latter
measures task accomplishment, that is, an assessment of whether or not the activity was done right.
17. The strict definition of decisive points as points from which to attack a centre of gravity must be
expanded so that they are viewed as stepping stones to reaching an objective along a specific line of operation. In
other words, the decisive points must be viewed as effects to be created that lead to the realisation of an objective.
In the UK JDN 7/06, the concept of decisive points has been removed and replaced with Supporting Effects.
18. Despite the AAP 6 definition of a centre of gravity, recent re-evaluation of the concept has
clarified the meaning in the original constructs, that is to say, centres of gravity are either moral or physical
and are based on an individual or group, for example a leader or an armoured reserve force. They may have
capabilities, characteristics and locations, but a centre of gravity is a tangle element based on people, not a
characteristic.
19. For a more detailed discussion on the construction of a mission statement, see B-GL-331-002/
FP-000.
20. With respect to the term “targets”, a broader understanding the term must be used. Targets will
include adversary elements, friendly and allied elements and neutral audiences. Nothing nefarious is meant by
the term, but it seen in the sense of a business advertisement “targeting” a particular audience. Thus all target
engagements are considered together in a complementary and comprehensive fashion.
21. This in itself provides a basis for considering adjustments to the overall plan. This distils itself into
the paraphrase, doing the right thing as opposed to doing the thing right (we will ideally like to achieve both):
a. Measure(s) of Effectiveness (MOE) - The criteria used to evaluate how activities have affected
system behaviour or capabilities (Are we doing the right things?), MOE are tied to effects and effects assessment,
and
b. Measure(s) of Performance (MOP) - Criteria used to evaluate accomplishment of friendly force
actions (Are we doing things right?), MOP are tied to task and task assessment.
244
22. AAP 3.10 Allied Joint Doctrine for Information Operations. Ratified by NATO nations in
2007. This definition replaces all other previous definitions of information operations for Cdn land forces.
23. US doctrine has focussed Info Ops on the concept of Information Engagement and places
responsibility for the cognitive effects of PsyOps, public affairs and CIMIC under the G7 and G9 staff branches.
UK doctrine has disposed of the concept of Info Ops and has placed the concept of Joint Influence under the
Commander and G3, in combination with Joint Fires (that is, cognitive effects and physical effects activities all
under the G3 staff branch).
24. Long term effects may include the removal of a C2 system that will be required by coalition
forces later or by civilian populations.
25. Civil-Military Cooperation is defined as: The coordination and cooperation, in support of the
mission, between commanders and civil actors, including the national population and local authorities, as well as
international, national and non-governmental organizations and agencies. AAP 6.
26. In order to counter adversary propaganda and other influence activity, internal public affairs may
be used.
27. Although some debate has occurred regarding the “information plane” and some segments of
allied doctrine refer to such a level of existence, all elements that may be considered under such a description,
actually fall to either the physical or cognitive planes. Information itself exists on the physical plane if it can be
attacked or physically affected (attacked, blocked by EW, etc) or on the cognitive plane if it rests in an individual’s
mind and thus affects perception and behaviour.
28. ABCA Armies Program Information Operations Project Team paper, November 2007
29. Activities that create cognitive effects may be viewed as sustaining when they seek to maintain
perceptions and opinions, such as the use of public affairs to inform domestic audiences and friendly forces and
to counter enemy propaganda or negative, biased media coverage.
30. This refinement of Info Ops doctrine and the alignment of influence activities are operations
under a G3 branch is akin to the doctrinal developments of UK and US land forces.
31. All doctrinal concepts begin with a philosophy, then broaden to a set of guiding principles, and
then develop as practices and procedures.
32. These physical effects may be termed “fires”, defined as the deliberate use of physical means to
support the realisation of primarily physical effects. They include lethal and non-lethal physical means to engage a
target, such as EW.
33. On the cognitive plane, targets are people, either individuals or groups. They include national
and regional leaders, military commanders, social and religious leader, troops and segments of a population.
34. Dragon, Randal A., Wielding the Cyber Sword: Exploiting the Power of Information Operations.
Carlisle PA: USAWC, March 2001.p.11.
35. Red Teaming is utilised to provide counter-intuitive or counter-factual perspectives in campaign
analysis and war gaming, regarding the reactions of neutrals, aligned and non-aligned actors, as well as the
traditional focus on the adversary.
36. Adopted from Randal A. Dragon, Wielding the Cyber Sword: Exploiting the Power of Information
Operations. Strategy Research Project 13 March 2001, USAWC, Carlisle PA, page 18
37. Briand, Maj Noelle J. How to win friends and Influence People: Planning Perception \
management at the Division and Corps level. School of advanced \military Studies, USA Command and General
Staff College, Fort Leavenworth , Kansas, AY 03-04. p 42-43.
38. Murphy, Prof Dennis. Information Operations and Winning the Peace: Wilding the Information
Element of power in the global War on Terrorism. Centre for Strategic leadership Issue Paper, U.S. Amy War, Vol
14-05 December 2005 College.
245
Annex B
39. For a detailed discussion of causality see William S. Murray, “A Will to Measure,” Parameters,
Vol.31, No.3, Autumn 2001. Carlisle PA: USAWC. Pp.134-147.
40. The quantifiable, observable, and timeliness principles are adapted from LtCol. David Grohoski,
Steven Seybert, and Marc Romanych, “Measures of Effectiveness in the Information Environment,” Military
Intelligence Professional Bulletin, Vol.29, No.3, July-September 2003. Fort Huachuca AZ: US Army Intelligence
Center. pp.12-16.
41. Baker. For example, during a tour in Iraq, 2 BCT, 1st Armored Division monitored and counted
local and international media coverage of events in 2 BCT’s AOO as a MoE. This allowed positive and negative
trends to be identified which contributed to discerning the effectiveness of ongoing IO.
42. The manoeuvrist approach must not be confused with tactical or operational manoeuvre, which
is an element of the Act operational function and is defined as: employment of forces through movement combined
with speed, firepower, or fire potential, to achieve a position of advantage in respect to the threat in order to achieve the
mission (AAP 6).
43. For a full discussion of mission command, see B-Gl-300-003/FP-000 Command.
44. Main effort is defined as: a concentration of forces or means, in a particular area, where a commander
seeks to bring about a decision. It works to achieve a unity of effort across all subordinate and supporting forces and
maximises combat power.
246
List of Abbreviations
Annex C
3-D+C diplomacy, defence, development and dommerce (often abbreviated as 3-D)
3-D+T defence, diplomacy, development and trade (often abbreviated as 3-D)
ACTS Air Corps Tactical School
ACSC Air Command and Staff College (US Air Force)
AEF American Expeditionary Force
AO Area of Operations
AWPD-1 Air War Plans Division’s Plan No. 1
C2 command and control
C3 command, control and communication
C4ISR command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance

and reconnaissance
CA Comprehensive Approach
CADRE College of Airpower Doctrine, Research and Education
CAS complex adaptive system
CEP circular error probable
CF Canadian Forces
CFC Canadian Forces College
CFAWC Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare Centre
CFEC Canadian Forces Experimentation Centre
247
Annex C
CFOPP Canadian Forces operational planning process (sometimes abbreviated as

OPP for operational planning process)
CIACG Coalition Interagency Coordination Group
CIE collaborative information environment
CIMIC civil-military cooperation
CINC commander-in-chief
CJSOH Combined and Joint Staff Officer’s Handbook
CKA computerized knowledge assessment
COA course of action
COG Centre of Gravity
CONOPS concept of operations
CROP common relevant operational picture
CTF Coalition Task Force
CTFHQ Coalition Task Force Headquarters
CV critical vulnerability
DFAIT Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
DIME Diplomatic, Informational, Military and Economic
DND Department of National Defence (Canada)
DoD Department of Defense (United States)
DP Development Period
DRDC Defence Research and Development Canada
DS directing staff
DSTO Defence Science and Technology Organisation
248
EBA effects-based approach
EBAO effects-based approach(es) to operations
EBO effects-based operations
EBP effects-based planning
ETO effects-tasking order
GWOT global war on terrorism
IDA Institute for Defense Analysis
IDC Imperial Defence College
IGO intergovernmental organization
IO international organization(s)
INFO OPS information operation(s)
ISR intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance
JDCC Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre
JFC joint force commander
JFCOM Joint Forces Command
JIACG Joint Interagency Coordination Group
JIMP joint, interagency, multinational and public
JNEPI Joint NGO Emergency Preparedness Initiative
JOPES Joint Planning and Execution System
JTF joint task force
249
Annex C
LOE Limited Objective Experiment
MNE multinational experiment
MOE measure of effectiveness
MOP measure of performance
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NCW network-centric warfare
NDC National Defence College
NDHQ National Defence Headquarters
NEC network-enabled capability
NEOps network-enabled operations
NEV national elements of value
NGO non-governmental organization
NMO non-military organization
NSC National Security College
NVA North Vietnamese Army
OGD other government department
ONA operational net assessment
OODA Observe, Orient, Decide and Act (loop)
OPP (see CFOPP)
250
PCO Privy Council Office
PGM precision guided munition
PMESII Political, Military, Economic, Social, Infrastructure, and Information
PME professional military education
PSYOPS physiological operations
QDR Quadrennial Defense Review
RAF Royal Air Force
RCC regional combatant command
RDO rapid decisive operations
RFC Royal Flying Corps
RMA Revolution in Military Affairs
RNAS Royal Naval Air Service
SA situational awareness
SAM surface-to-air missile
SJFHQ Standing Joint Forces Headquarters
SME subject matter expert
SOC sector operations centre
SWOT Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats
251
Annex C
TAC tactical air command
TTCP The Technical Cooperation Program
UN United Nations
UK United Kingdom
USAAF US Army Air Forces
USAF United States Air Force
USAID US Agency for International Development
USJFCOM United States Joint Forces Command
USMC United States Marine Corps
USSBS United States Strategic Bombing Survey
WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction
252
Contributors
Annex D
Contributors
Howard G. Coombs retired from active duty with the Canadian Forces in 2002. He is a
graduate of the United States Army Command and General Staff College, where he was
one of 11 students who earned the designation US Army Master Strategist in 2001, and the
US Army School of Advanced Military Studies, which awarded his Master’s degree. He is
currently a doctoral candidate at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, in addition to
being a Teaching Fellow at Queen’s, research associate of the Canadian Forces Leadership
Institute, Kingston, a part-time instructor at the Canadian Forces College, Toronto, Ontario
and a reserve officer commanding the Princess of Wales’ Own Regiment, an infantry unit
based in Kingston.
Colonel Jim Cottingham joined the CF army reserve in 1971 as a radio operator. After
commissioning under the Reserve Officer University Training Plan (ROUTP) in 1973,
he was trained as a communications and electronics officer. He transferred to the Regular
Force in 1978, and after receiving his air navigator wings, began his operational flying career
in 1980 as a tactical coordinator on the Sea King helicopters. He has served in numerous
operational and staff positions since then.
He served as a member of the directing staff at the Canadian Forces Staff College in Toronto,
and in August 2005, was appointed the first commanding officer of the Canadian Forces
Aerospace Warfare Centre (CFAWC).
Colonel Cottingham is a graduate of the CF Staff School, the Royal Australian Air Force
Staff College and is a distinguished graduate of the United States Air Force Air War College.
He holds a Diploma in Electronics Engineering Technology, a Bachelor of Military Arts and
Science, a Graduate Diploma in Management, a Master of Strategic Studies and a Master of
Arts in War Studies.
Lieutenant-Colonel Craig Dalton was commissioned into the Royal Regiment of

Canadian Artillery and commenced regimental duty with the 2nd Regiment Royal Canadian
Horse Artillery in 1990. Since that time, Lieutenant-Colonel Dalton has been employed
alternatively on regimental duty, including operational deployments to both Cyprus and
Bosnia-Herzegovina, and a variety of staff positions including his current assignment as an
international planner on the Strategic Joint Staff.
Lieutenant-Colonel Dalton is a graduate of the Instructor-in-Gunnery Course (Field), the

Canadian Land Force Command and Staff College, the United States Army Command and
General Staff College and the United States Army School of Advance Military Studies. He
holds a BMASc from The Royal Military College of Canada, an MMAS from the United
States Army School of Advanced Military Studies and an MSc in Administration from
Central Michigan University.
253
Annex D
Allan English was the lead academic for the Advanced Military Studies Course from its
inception in 1998 to 2004 and he was co-chair of the Aerospace Studies Department
from 2001 to 2005 at the Canadian Forces College. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor
of History at Queen’s University where he teaches a graduate course in Canadian military
history. In the fall of 2005 the Canadian Defence Academy (CDA) Press published The
Operational Art - Canadian Perspectives: Context and Concepts edited by Dr. English, Major-
General Daniel Gosselin, Howard Coombs, and Captain (Navy) Laurence M. Hickey. The
next book in the series, edited by Dr. English, The Operational Art - Canadian Perspectives:
Leadership and Command was published by CDA Press in the summer of 2006. The final
book in the series, edited with Colonel James Taylor, The Operational Art - Canadian
Perspectives: Health Service Support was published by CDA Press in the winter of 2006. His
latest book, co-authored with Richard Gimblett and Howard Coombs, Networked Operations
and Transformation: Context and Canadian Contributions was published by McGill-Queen’s
University Press in 2007.
Robert Grossman-Vermaas is currently serving with the Operational Experimentation

branch, Joint Experimentation, Exercises & Assessment, NATO Allied Command
Transformation (ACT). Prior to this assignment, he served as an Effects-based Assessment
and Planning analyst to Commander International Security
Assistance Force (COMISAF), NATO ISAF HQ, Kabul, as a member of the Operational
Analysis branch. In Afghanistan he was also analytical liaison to Combined Forces
Command-Afghanistan (CFC-A) and CJTF-76 and traveled extensively throughout the
country. From 2002-2006 he served as a strategic analyst with the Department of National
Defence (Canada) and with the Advanced Concept Development cell, Directorate of
Defence Analysis and Canadian Forces Experimentation Centre (CFEC). He was, from
2002-2006, the Canadian concept lead for the multinational and national effects-based
concept, and has presented and published extensively on the topic. He was a Canadian
effects-based concept liaison to US Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), Joint Experimentation
(J9), and served as a core concept development contributor to the Multinational
Experimentation (MNE) series. Previous assignments have included the US Department
of Defense and the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL). He has been
awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and is a PhD candidate at the Department of War Studies,
King’s College, London.
Commander Ken Hansen graduated from the University of Alberta in 1976 and enrolled
in the CF in 1977 through the Direct Entry Programme. He has served at sea and ashore
in a number of different operational and staff positions. He completed the Command and
Staff Course in 1996, and on completion, was posted to the Canadian Forces College as the
Staff Officer Naval Doctrine. His subsequent appointments at CFC have included Senior
Staff Officer Joint and Combined Warfare, and Military Co-Chair of the Maritime Studies
Program.
Commander Hansen completed a Master of Arts in War Studies at the Royal Military
College of Canada in 2005, winning the Barry D. Hunt Memorial Prize as the top graduate
student. He has published a number of articles on naval and defence issues and he is
254
Contributors
currently the Defence Fellow at the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, Dalhousie University,
Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Magee joined the Canadian Forces in July 1980. He completed
training as an infantry officer in August 1981 and joined Third Battalion, The Royal
Canadian Regiment in Germany. He has served in numerous line and staff positions
since then. More recently, he served as the Canadian Exchange officer at the United States
Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas from 2002
until 2006. In addition to his duties as an instructor he was the subject matter expert for
peace operations and joint urban operations. He assumed the position as the Chair of the
Department of Military Planning and Operations at the Canadian Forces Staff College in
Toronto in July 2006.
Lieutenant-Colonel Magee has completed his staff college courses in Kingston and Toronto.
He has a Master’s in War Studies, with a focus on command and leadership from the Royal
Military College of Canada, and a Master’s in Military Arts and Science from the United
States Army Command and General Staff College focussing on Peace Operations.
Bob Vokac enrolled in the United States Army Reserve Officer Training Corps at the
University of Michigan in September 1974. He graduated from the University of Michigan
in 1978 with a Bachelor of Business Administration and was commissioned as a Second
Lieutenant of Field Artillery. He then served in the United States Army for the next 25 years
in a wide variety of progressive command and staff positions. He completed his MSc in
Operations Management at the University of Arkansas in 1990. Following completion of the
United States Army Command and General Staff Officer Course in 1991, Mr. Vokac had
the rare privilege of attending the Advanced Military Studies Program, School of Advanced
Military Studies, United States Army Command and General Staff College, where he
received a Master of Military Arts and Sciences in Theatre Operations in 1992. In 1999 he
was posted as the United States Army Exchange Officer to the Canadian Forces College in
Toronto, where he served as a member of the directing staff, Deputy Director Land Studies,
and Deputy Director Course. Following his retirement from the United States Army in
2003 he co-founded Wolverine Consulting, a small business dedicated to the development
and delivery of professional military education curriculum throughout the Canadian Forces.
Since 2004 he has served as a Joint and Combined Warfare Coordinator for the Joint Reserve
Command and Staff Course while continuing to work with a number of defence-related
clients. Mr. Vokac is a Senior Research Fellow for the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies
(CISS), where in his spare time he serves as the executive secretary representing CISS to local
and national media.
Colonel Randall T. Wakelam retired from the Canadian Forces in 2005 after 36 years of
service. Between 1977 and 1987 he flew Twin Hueys, amassing some 3,000 flying hours and
holding appointments as Flight Safety Officer, Tactical Instructor Pilot, Operations Officer
and Flight Commander. He commanded 408 Tactical Helicopter Squadron from 1991 to
1993. From 1993 until 2002 he served at the Canadian Forces College holding a variety
of appointments including Director of Warfare Studies. While at the college he was a lead
255
Annex D
designer for the Advanced Military Studies and National Security Studies courses. After
retirement he retained his links to the college as a part-time instructor and returned to the
college as Director of Curriculum (a full-time Reserve position) in 2006. He is a graduate of
the Canadian Land Forces Command and Staff Course and the Canadian Forces Command
and Staff Course, and completed his PhD in History at Wilfrid Laurier University in 2006.
His research interests include air warfare, command and leadership, and military education.
256

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Part I - Introductory Material

Effects-Based Approaches to Operations:

This publication is available online at trenton.mil.ca/lodger/CFAWC/eLibrary/eLibrary_

PART II - ORIGINS, CONCEPTS AND CONTEXT

PART III – CANADIAN PERSPECTIVES FROM THE EBO WORKSHOP

PART IV - ASSESSING EFFECTS-BASED APPROACHES

PART V - APPLYING EFFECTS-BASED APPROACHES

PART VII – ANNEXES

Effects-based operations is a complex concept that is influencing our approach to

I look forward to continuing the debate.

The contributions in parts IV and V of this book that assess effects-based

4. To take advantage of the revolution in military affairs currently ongoing – the

A Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) is a major change in the nature of

The central thesis of EBO is best captured in the following quote:

In the … effects-based contest, the objective is to break the will or otherwise

Although physical destruction remains a factor in EBO, it is the creation

Setting the Scene - The Underlying Theory

In order to understand EBO, it is first necessary to understand its origins. The

The bombing attacks “may be expected, whether they involve London or

On 13 June, a formation of 18 Gothas attacked London, killing 574 people.

The apparent psychological collapse of the German population certainly had an

The American report went on to say:

In considering the first [bombing war industries] a careful study should be

The most efficient way to defeat an enemy is to destroy, by means of bom-

Your primary objective will be the progressive destruction and dislocation of

2. Electric Power 2. Submarine building yards 2. Submarine building yards

3. Transportation 3. Transportation 3. Ball Bearings

5. Morale 5. Petroleum Refineries and 5. Rubber synthetic plants

6. Rubber synthetic plants

“The fabric of modern nations is such a complete interweaving of major

Fearing escalation to a nuclear confrontation, President Johnson took

As an institution, the Air Force started to fractionate once it shifted its

Resurrection – The First Version of EBO

Figure 2-1. Warden’s Five Ring Theory

Boyd’s notion of exploiting time to force an adversary into decision paralysis

If a significant percentage [of critical targets] is struck in parallel, the dam-

Modern weapons permit us to deliver attacks against all activity within a

1. Leadership and command facilities

2. Electricity production facilities

3. Telecommunications and command, control and communications (C3) nodes

4. Strategic Integrated Air Defence Systems

5. Air forces and airfields

6. Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical research, production and storage facilities

7. Scud missiles, launchers, and production, and storage facilities

8. Naval and port facilities

9. Oil refining and distribution

10. Railroads and bridges

11. Army units, including Republican Guards

12. Military storage and production sites.90

…all elements of an air defense system simultaneously facilitates attacks on

In other words, a parallel attack against defending systems is possible, but it is

Deptula observes that traditionally, war has been regarded, in a Clauswitzian

Deptula acknowledges that the idea of targeting systems to achieve strategic

Thus, according to Deptula’s reasoning, the revolutionary technologies of precision

In discussing EBO and COGs, K. Noedskov provides a somewhat simplistic listing

A critical army perspective on Deptula’s work is provided by Gary Cheek in an

British Defence Doctrine, published in 1996, defines the manoeuvrist ap-

McCrabb explains how point-of-view generally determines whether an effect is

A mechanism is the explanation on how an action causes an effect. Mecha-

Combining two direct effects produces a complex effect (F) –

“The impact of B + the impact of D will lead to F.”

“The impact of B + the impact of E will lead to G.”